TheWrap cheekily dubs this “The romantic sniper monster movie you’ve been waiting for,” and that’s a fair description.
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| When Levi (Miles Teller) and Drasa (Anya Taylor-Joy) finally figure out a way to meet in person, the flickering sparks of mutual attraction become incandescent. |
Unfortunately, it’s eventually necessary to Provide Answers, and this film’s second half — although a rip-snortin’ roller coaster of pell-mell action — loses its smarts. The Reason For All This leaves far too many questions, hanging chads and plot holes large enough to fill the gorge in question.
Many films of this nature conclude with viewers sputtering “But, but, but...!” and wondering what logically would happen next, but this one’s in a league all its own.
Events begin as professional assassin Drasa (Joy) — a Lithuanian frequently employed by the Kremlin for covert ops — successfully completes an assignment with a long-range sniper rifle. She carefully retrieves the single spent cartridge shell and — during a subsequent meeting with her father, Erikas (William Houston) — hands it to him by way of purging her “sorrow.” He places it into a pouch laden with scores (hundreds?) of such shells.
But she’s shattered to learn that he’s dying of cancer. Unwilling to succumb slowly and painfully, he announces that he’ll end his life early the following year, on Valentine’s Day. Her chagrin is complex: Aside from not wanting to lose him, how will she then exorcise her sorrows?
Joy and Houston play this scene masterfully. She has long been adept at finely nuanced expressions and body language, since bursting onto the scene in the 2020 miniseries, The Queen’s Gambit. A wealth of emotions come into play here, particularly during the silences between sparse dialogue.
Elsewhere, in the States, former U.S. Marine scout/sniper Levi Kane (Teller) has lost his psychological edge; he suffers from nightmares about previous assignments. He’s nonetheless recruited by Bartholomew (Sigourney Weaver), a high-level spook of some sort, for a highly unusual, year-long assignment.
Levi is drugged during the subsequent plane flight, and has no idea of location — aside from “northern hemisphere,” since the season hasn’t changed — upon reaching his destination: a tall, well-fortified bunker tower on the western side of a vast, mist-enshrouded gorge. Levi is briefed by his predecessor: Jasper “J.D.” Drake (Sope Dirisu), a former British Royal Marine corporal.
The tower’s weaponry is augmented by automated turret defenses running along this side of the gorge, along with suspended mines against the walls below; the entire set-up also boasts a powerful cloaking device that conceals everything from orbiting satellites.
All of this defensive armory is designed to prevent the “monstrous creatures” within the gorge from escaping into the outside world. Earlier tower guardians dubbed them “hollow men,” in reference to the T.S. Eliot poem of the same name, which depicts the end of the world.
(Poetry figures strongly in this entire story.)
This vast defensive structure has an identical counterpart directly across the gorge, on the eastern side: a rare display of cooperation between the two world super-powers. Even so, communication between the two sides is forbidden.
J.D. wishes Levi good luck, and hikes out toward his prearranged pick-up point.
It’s September, and the film’s next half hour proceeds without dialogue: a brilliant display of storytelling via body language, pantomime and facial expression.
Levi’s days are filled with maintenance responsibilities, to ensure all defenses remain operational. Eventually, though, curiosity prompts the use of his sniper scope to see who’s staffing the eastern tower ... and it’s Drasa (of course!). She, in turn, begins to keep an eye on him.
Her birthday arrives a few weeks later. Mildly drunk — both towers are well stocked with alcohol (which, upon reflection, seems unwise) — Drasa impulsively violates protocol and writes Levi a message. He briefly balks, but relents when she gets his attention more directly.
As the days pass, their exchanged messages become more personal and flirty. Joy again excels here, every graceful movement as carefully calculated as that of a ballet dancer; Drasa becomes saucy and mocking, with a come-hither gaze to die for. Teller’s similarly shaded performance is more restrained and cautious; even so, Levi can’t help succumbing to Drasa’s impish behavior.
Autumn slides into winter — interrupted by one scary “incident” — and they begin to play chess, and share music on improvised drum sets (cheeky nods to the actors’ respective roles in Queen’s Gambit and 2014's Whiplash). They bond to the degree possible, given the obvious handicap. Dean’s script doesn’t miss a trick; Levi and Drasa’s inventive efforts at long-distance intimacy become quite charming.
Then Valentine’s Day hits.
Seeing Drasa suddenly shattered, not knowing why, Levi acts impulsively.
Since all of this film’s publicity stills show the two characters side by side, in full battle mode, it obviously isn’t a spoiler to reveal that Levi figures out how to bridge the gorge. (I mean, let’s get serious; you knew they had to get together, right?)
Then everything goes to hell ... in more ways than the obvious.
The story’s action-laden second half feels like an entirely different movie: laden with contrivance, confusion and a kitchen-sink approach to mayhem. Levi and Drasa endure only because the script says they do. Sure, vicarious thrills ’n’ chills abound, but they’re in service of what devolves into a dumb, monster-laden action flick.
The first hour’s intelligence and sly subtlety are entirely absent.
Credit where due, Derrickson and editor Frédéric Thoraval move the second hour at a lively clip, clearly hoping to hold our attention via sheer momentum. In fairness, I’m sure that’ll be enough for many viewers.
The tech credits are excellent. Production designer Rick Heinrichs does an exceptional job with the towers and their accompanying defenses; I love the little details within Levi’s quarters, such as the books, epigrams and poems scrawled onto one wall, and other bits and bobs.
The massive makeup department clearly had fun with wigs, teeth, prosthetics and everything else necessary to bring all manner of beasties to life. Visual effects supervisors Erik Nordby, Anelia Asparuhova and Sebastian von Overheidt also kept busy; everything about this crazy setting feels persuasively authentic.
The score, from the indefatigable Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, slides from spooky piano riffs and ominous synth — initially — to warped guitars and crashing drums, when the action kicks in.
On sum, The Gorge isn’t a bad way to spend a vicarious evening ... but it could — should — have been better.
2 comments:
I really enjoyed this review. Is this your first with a 1/4 star?
It is indeed. I've realized, over time, that there's a wide chasm (no pun intended) between 3 and 3.5. The latter is "acceptable," but the former tends to be "unacceptable." So I split the difference, in the hope that readers would realize this one isn't as "bad" as the usual 3.0 stars
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