Fall is here, and it is time to turn on the TV, get cozy, and watch some movies. My top pick is psychological thrillers, but “Speak No Evil” is not worth watching.
The movie showcases a family of three who moved from the United States to London for personal and professional reasons. The Husband Ben Dalton (Scoot McNairy), wife Louise Dalton (Mackenzie Davis), and an almost 12-year-old daughter, Agnes (Alix West Lefler) are met with another family on vacation consisting of a forty-something father named Paddy (James McAvoy), his much younger wife Ciara (Aisling Franciosi), and their son Ant (Dan Hough), who’s about Agnes’ age but can’t speak clearly due to what Paddy describes as a birth deformity of the tongue. The families make enough of a connection for Paddy to invite the Daltons to his spacious but somewhat decrepit old house in the countryside a few hours outside London. They’re supposedly going to hang out, enjoy home-cooked meals, swim in the local pond, and walk in the woods. Sounds like fun, but the hosts turn unhinged.
After an hour and a half, it’s here where the audience finally gets their action. The part that we’ve all been waiting for, and what was the heart of the trailer. There’s about 15 minutes of suspense where the protagonists hide from the antagonists, 10 minutes of fighting, (being generous), and the last 5 minutes, I’m sure you can guess (spoiler alert)… Ding, ding, ding! The protagonists win the fight and flee the scene! So typical. Part of me wanted the antagonists to win just so it had something more to it. That’s something that was unique about “Saltburn”. The antagonist won. The ending was different and impactful. This film, however, was simply the family driving away from the scene in silence.
The last 30 minutes of the movie felt as short as the trailer. Every single part of the action was shown in those two minutes. It feels like I didn’t even need to sit for 2 hours and stuff my face with popcorn to pass the time. I could have called it a day after watching the trailer in theaters because I got all the information I needed.. It was spread into this unnecessary two-hour-long, middle-tier film. For the entirety of the hour and a half of fluff, I was watching, thinking, “When does the action start like the trailer promised?” and, “Where are the parts from the trailer that actually encouraged me to watch the movie?”
This seems to be a problem with psychological thrillers these days. I found this problem in “Blink Twice”, also. The movie had me on the edge of my seat… for the last 30 minutes. It’s almost like the directors forget that that is supposed to be the most important and entertaining part of their movie. They get so caught up in the fluff, trying to make the movie longer, but, as a viewer, I would like the movie more if it was simply an hour long.
