BY JACK RANSOM MARCH 3, 2024
Bring Him to Me pretty much turned out the way I had dreaded: incredibly generic, poorly paced and featuring an oftentimes eye-rolling screenplay. These aspects are a shame, as there are flashes of potential for a solid ‘one crazy night/tight location’ crime flick.
SYNOPSIS
Under orders from a ruthless crime boss (Rachel Griffiths), a getaway driver (Barry Pepper) must battle his conscience and drive an unsuspecting crew member (Jamie Costa) to an ambush execution. There is a long drive ahead.
REVIEW
The last sentence of that plot synopsis is incredibly accurate, as this thriller’s 90 minute runtime felt around the 120 minute mark and had me clock-watching from about the halfway point. This slow-burn crawler trundles along and offers little tension and thrills. Its jumpy ‘flashback to present day’ structuring in the first quarter is clunky and really once those robbery scenes have wrapped up, the film spends about 80% of the time locked in the car with two of the most uninteresting and cliched lead duos I have seen in this genre in a long time.
Predictably both have estranged families (they got in the game to provide a better life for their kid), the younger guy likes to talk (I swear some of the dialogue was off-the-cuff, an excruciating Batman analogy is fumbled out), older one doesn’t, however as the film he progresses he warms to the younger guy. The crime/gang element to the film really adds nothing, as simply put, you have seen far more engaging films in this genre.
There are a handful of decently stylised shots on display here and the film is competently put together. However, its low budget is certainly apparent and some of the CGI implementations alongside the practical/physical objects are noticeable. Performance-wise familiar faces Barry Pepper and Sam Neil do attempt to elevate the material, but even they have only have so much ability to make any of the words written for them interesting. Rachel Griffiths’ mob-boss-101 accent is a bizarre blend of Australian & Boston. She looks the part but honestly it feels like she’s reading from a ‘How to be a Mobster’ guide thanks to the script. Lastly, Jamie Costa’s sympathetic attempts fall flat and he gives off no intimidation whatsoever.
Bring Him to Me is a very forgettable and bland crime drama thriller that offers very little originality and thrills or any semblance of tension. The cast do try their best with the material and the film isn’t constructed poorly. However, it is persistently dull, uninspired and let down by a cliche ridden and eye-rolling script.
STAR RATING
