Review of Hold the Dark (2018) by Mustard0 — 09 Oct 2018
TLDR: Decent cinematography and what should have been a great cast can't drag this pretentious, boring slog of a film above mediocrity. If you want a film that checks every single box Hold the Dark was making a sloppy attempt at checking, just watch Insomnia (2002) instead.
It starts out as an interesting thriller, and for the first quarter of the movie I was genuinely interested in finding out where the storyline was going. However, the tailspin starts with the ridiculous Tarantino-esque shootout scene, where 30 cops armed with SMG's spend 10 minutes emptying clips at a guy sitting in an open window - but apparently they all went to Stormtrooper training camp, because zero of their shots connect as they all get mowed down. Immediately afterward the script pulls another bizarre turn, leaves any semblance of a plot far behind, and turns into a meandering and pointless dude-in-a-mask horror flick.
The script is slathered in what's supposed to be deep symbolism, but it ends up having all the depth of one of Jaden Smith's tweets. As a result, though the actors are trying to inject gravitas into every single word of the slow, grumbled dialogue, it mostly just comes across as droning and monotonous. If a film is a steak and symbolism is sauce, the chef here has dumped ten gallons of A1 on our plate.
The final nail in the coffin is the '...that's it?' ending. As I said in the lead, just watch Insomnia instead.
This review of Hold the Dark (2018) was written by Mustard0 on 09 Oct 2018.
Hold the Dark has generally received mixed reviews.
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