Director Roseanne Liang’s cheeky little thrill ride — available via Amazon Prime and other streaming services — is a tip of the aviator’s cap to an iconic Twilight Zone episode.
On steroids.
Back in the 1960s, this New Zealand import would have been relegated to the drive-in circuit. In the late 1980s and early ’90s, you’d have found it in Friday’s late-night pay-cable time slot. Even so, it won the People’s Choice Award for Midnight Madness at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival: an honor it richly deserves, and is a perfect indication of what you should expect.
Flight officer Maude Garrett (Chloë Grace Moretz) expected a bumpy — but otherwise
uneventful — flight from Auckland to Samoa. Boy, does she get a surprise!
The script, co-written by Liang and Max Landis — director John Landis’ son (also telling) — is defiantly whacked. Liang and Landis make no apologies for contrivance and the violation of all known laws of physics and aerodynamics; indeed, they gleefully revel in this stuff ’n’ nonsense.
That said, Liang and editor Tom Eagles deliver an impressive level of tension and momentum. This baby moves.
Although … not right away.
The film opens with a WWII-era public service cartoon that parodies “Falling Hare,” the 1943 Warner Bros. classic that finds Bugs Bunny battling a little gremlin. This foreshadowing thus established, we meet Flight Officer Maude Garrett (Chloë Grace Moretz) on a military airfield in Auckland. It’s August 1943, late at night, and she’s scheduled to meet a B-17 bomber touching down only briefly, before resuming flight to Samoa with badly needed supplies.
The plane is christened The Fool’s Errand. (More foreshadowing.)
Maude’s left arm is in a sling, and she looks a bit worse for wear. She’s carrying a small dispatch case laden with top-secret papers.
Most of the seven-man crew is actively hostile to her presence, but her orders — verified by the plane’s pilot, Capt. Reeves (Callan Mulvey) — are emphatic: They’re to transport her and the case to Samoa. Lacking anything in the way of passenger space, the men get childish revenge by consigning her to the ball-shaped Sperry turret, fitted on the plane’s underbelly.
There’s no room for the dispatch case, which Maude insists can’t leave her custody. Quaid (Taylor John Smith), the top turret gunner — and the sole crew member treating her with kindness — promises to guard it.
So, into the turret she goes. We — along with cinematographer Kit Fraser’s camera — go with her. And stay with her.
What follows takes place entirely from Maude’s point of view, within the Sperry: Liang and Landis’ riff on the claustrophobic sub-genre of “man in a can” thrillers. Events within the body of the plane proceed solely on the basis of what Maude hears via the radio comm, the camera rarely leaving Moretz’s face. Much of the developing tension is conveyed solely by her expressive features; it’s an impressive acting job.
At first, unaware that she can hear them on the comm, the men reveal themselves as the worst sort of sexist pigs. (The coarse and vulgar dialogue, while undoubtedly accurate to this setting, definitely tests our 21st century tolerance.) When she politely reveals that she’s been hearing every word, the dynamic becomes slightly less insulting … but only slightly.
Maude is crisp, efficient, capable and whip-smart throughout: absolutely unafraid to stand up for herself, for her mission, and for a little more respect. Moretz is perfect in the part, and we admire her wholeheartedly.
Then, looking out the turret’s glass walls, she sees something on the underside of one wing.
Something … undefined.
She also briefly spots a Japanese scouting plane below them. Reporting this proves as useless as trying to explain what she saw on the wing; everybody insists that the enemy air fleet can’t operate so far from Japan. Her warning — that the scout will return with fighter planes — falls on deaf ears.
As for the whatzit, well, obviously she’s suffering from female hysteria. Ah, but that opinion isn’t shared by tail gunner Beckell (Nick Robinson), the youngest crew member, who also spotted the whatzit.
Which, within the next few minutes, is revealed in all of its impressively nasty glory, as it attacks the Sperry: a terrific achievement in monster-making by New Zealand’s Weta Digital effects team.
With danger soon threatening on two fronts, the men inside the plane eventually are forced to admit that things are going very, very wrong … and Maude is still stuck in the bloody turret (its exit hatch having malfunctioned).
This entire film runs only a fast-paced 83 minutes. Maude — and our “isolated” view of things — remain in place until just after the 51-minute mark.
At which point, we charge into an audaciously crazed final half-hour, which gets more exciting (and jaw-dropping) by the minute. I have to give Moretz credit: She plays this role completely straight, Maude absolutely committed and determined, no matter how ridiculous things get. (And, trust me, they get totally silly.)
Moretz puts total conviction into Maude’s telling line, directed at the gremlin — “You have no idea how far I’ll go” — when she’s finally able to escape the turret. (To where, you may wonder? Don’t obsess; all you can do is smile and shake your head in disbelief.)
Smith and Robinson eventually are allowed to add a bit of depth to Quaid and Beckell, and Beulah Koale — recognized from the TV reboot of Hawaii Five-0 — gets to shine as Samoan co-pilot Williams. The remaining men never rise above their introduction as crude, one-dimensional chauvinists.
What we’ve got here, ultimately, is a cockeyed blend of monster flick and war drama, with a dollop of social commentary — sexism, racism — thrown in. The result is clumsy and deranged, to say the least … but, if you’re in the proper frame of mind, a lot of fun.
Even so, don’t misunderstand: At best, this is a guilty pleasure. (Extremely guilty!)
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