James McAvoy in Speak No Evil
SPEAK NO EVIL
We're all used to the convention of horror-movie characters behaving with abject stupidity. I'd argue that these folks generally do dimwitted things because, as written, they tend to be stupid, or at least terminally dim – lacking instinct enough to know the perils of entering unlit, unfamiliar basements alone, or removing a Satanic object from its resting place despite the warnings of that kindly priest. But how are we to rationalize the truly moronic behavior of the seemingly intelligent, culturally savvy protagonists in writer/director James Watkins' Speak No Evil? For that matter, how are we to rationalize the conduct of the film's “unexpected” monster whose ruse requires strict discipline yet who may as well be telegraphing his evil with brightly colored semaphore flags? I didn't dislike Watkins' fright flick because it wasn't frightening, though that certainly didn't help matters. I disliked it because, in a rarity for this genre, its (adult) heroes and villains truly seemed to deserve each other.
Speak No Evil is Watkins' reworking of a 2022 release by Danish writer/director Christian Tafdrup, and everything I've read about that film indicates that it's much, much nastier than its current equivalent. (Tafdrup's version sounds a bit like Michael Haneke's notoriously icky Funny Games, which spawned its own needless American remake.) Yet while I completely understand big-studio squeamishness demanding alterations to the original material, if you're not going to preserve the Danish picture's bleak, vicious nihilism, why remake Speak No Evil at all? I only sought out spoilers for Tafdrup's movie because what transpired in the the last half-hour of Watkins' made no earthly sense in relation to what came before; something about the narrative had to have changed in the transfer between continents, and I needed to know what. Now I know, and am grateful that I never endured the 2022 version. If only I could go back in time and not sit through the 2024 rendition, either.
As it does in so many horror movies, the trouble starts on vacation, though it's clear from their introduction that things aren't entirely rosy between married Americans Louise and Ben Dalton (Mackenzie Davis and Scoot McNairy). Recent London transplants vacationing in Tuscany with their 11-year-old Agnes (Alix West Lefler), Louise and Ben – she having recently, grudgingly given up her career, he recently unemployed – seem on brittle-but-trying terms. Until, that is, they meet Paddy and Ciara (James McAvoy and Aisling Franciosi), fun-loving Europeans vacationing with their own grade-school-aged child, an introverted boy named Ant (Dan Hough). Delighted when Agnes and Ant become fast friends, the Daltons are charmed by Paddy's and Ciara's zest for life and mutual distaste for a pair of fellow travelers. (That these well-meaning bores are identified as Danish feels like a particularly cruel jab on Watkins' part.) Louise and Ben are so taken with the couple that they tentatively agree to a future weekend together at Paddy's and Ciara's English farmhouse, a vague plan that becomes a reality after the Daltons return to rainy London and, only somewhat apprehensive about spending two days with relative strangers, decide they could really use a getaway. Ummm … didn't these people just get back from a week in Italy?
It would be nice, or at least less bothersome, to say that the frequent illogic of Speak No Evil is kicked off with this moment some 20 minutes into the film. Yet that's not entirely accurate. Nothing about Paddy's initial uncouthness and grandstanding bravado registers as anything that buttoned-down Ben and visibly distrustful Louise would find appealing for one night, let alone a whole weekend. And although it's easy to buy Agnes attaching herself to Ant – obsessively devoted to her stuffed rabbit toy, she seems as socially awkward, even mildly traumatized, as he does – it's hard to believe this girl would be so adamant about letting Paddy drive her around the town square on his Vespa, and impossible to believe that Louise would allow it. (Not only has this woman evidently never seen a horror movie; she's never seen a public-service video on helmet safety or “stranger danger,” either.) With the unlikelihoods piling up well before the movie even tried getting scary, it wasn't a surprise when the Daltons, in the dead of night (but apparently just in time for dinner), arrived at the spacious, secluded, ramshackle home of Paddy, Ciara, and Ant. What was surprising, even flabbergasting, was their decision to stay for more than an hour.
It should be said that despite the thunderous idiocy on display, Watkins' feature isn't badly made. The director does a fine job with scenes of eerie stillness and tense politesse; he largely keeps overbearing fright-film music cues to a minimum (until the obnoxious finale); and the performances of young Lefner and Hough are impeccable – particularly Hough, who remains nearly mute throughout, and who absolutely nails a tight closeup that might make you shed a tear even if you don't care for his movie. (Guilty.) But the professionalism can't salvage the ridiculousness of Watkins' Speak No Evil scenario, given that from the moment they enter the farmhouse, James McAvoy makes it abundantly clear that Louise and Ben have entered a horror movie. A lot of people, myself included, were annoyed by the trailers that seemed to give away every nanosecond of Watkins' plot, Paddy's sociopathy definitely included. I'm not certain, however, that we can blame the marketing team for advance knowledge of Paddy's devilishness. From the instant the guy starts playing host, McAvoy acts like a human Spoiler Alert.
Paddy makes uncomfortable jokes that appear funny only to him (and maybe to Ciara). He shows the Daltons Agnes' bed for the weekend – a dirty mattress on the floor of Ant's room. He stares down his guests, with a smile, like Private Pyle before his Full Metal Jacket suicide. He proudly boasts of butchering one of the farm's geese for dinner. Even having been told, on vacation, that she was a vegetarian, he all but forces a forkful of roasted goose into Louise's mouth – a mouthful that she pretends to enjoy and, when Paddy's not looking, subsequently spits into a napkin. (No word is ever said about how Louise gets through the entire meal pretending to eat the meat on her plate.) After all this, Louise makes some mild mention of potentially leaving that mealymouthed Ben consequently pooh-poohs, but seriously: Why are they staying there? From what I gather, the film's Danish version is something of a pitch-black comedy satirizing individuals so pathologically polite that they're rather die, quite literally, than offend. Yet what similarly satiric point, if any, could Watkins possibly be making here, considering that nothing about Mackenzie Davis' bearing and readings suggest any kind of pushover?
Beyond which, with McAvoy acting thisclose to his lunatic from M. Night Shymalan's Split, why wouldn't you risk offending Paddy? McAvoy's is an exhausting performance because he never gives his cretinous act a rest, and Louise and Ben increasingly come off as clueless dopes for their willingness to put up with him. Although Davis and McNairy, longtime co-stars on TV's Halt & Catch Fire, have a fine scene of marital discord and clearly share a honed performance rhythm, they lose our support as Louise and Ben continue to make the dumbest moves imaginable under any given circumstance. And don't get me started on the hideous contrivance of Agnes' stuffed bunny, the momentary absence of which twice gets the Daltons into potentially murderous calamity. Parents everywhere, I don't care how much your child cries when she loses her toy: You have a parental, moral, and probably legal obligation to get her the hell away from potential psychopaths as quickly as possible. Endure the bawling, order a new faux rabbit on Amazon, and move on with your lives.
A lot of fun can be had with fright-flick figures who appear dumber than boxes of rocks. But the dumbness of the Dalton grown-ups just makes Speak No Evil's extended finale all the more confounding, because instead of hoping for these nitwits to get their just desserts, we find that we're being actively guided toward rooting for them – and that doesn't track with the message the first hour-plus was insinuating. I could go on and on: about the wholly anticipated “shock” of Paddy's and Ciara's master plan; about the weird, seemingly tacked-on addition of financial impropriety; about the 180-degree motivational switch that should've left Ciara portrayer Franciosi with whiplash. Instead, I'll take my cue from McAvoy's shushing, Kubrickian poster image and simply shut up. After all, if you can't say anything nice … .
THE KILLER'S GAME
The surprise, the shock, of director J.J. Perry's violent action comedy The Killer's Game lies is how genuinely not-bad it is. With screenwriters Rand Ravich and James Coyne adapting Jay Bonansinga's 1997 novel, the movie boasts a relatively juicy premise, as Dave Bautista's buff and friendly contract killer Joe Flood hires a hit on himself upon learning of his fatal disease – a hit he immediately, and ineffectively, tries to cancel when he turns out to be misdiagnosed. But enjoyable conceits lead to bad movies all the time. And despite my fondness for Bautista, almost nothing about this conspicuously under-the-radar release appeared promising, beginning with that dreaded italicized, capitalized title font that's been employed for violent action comedies at least since 1987's Lethal Weapon and is rarely in service of similar entertainment.
Well, color me amazed, because Perry's outing is a lot more fun than it had any right to be. The unmistakably computer-generated splattering of blood is routinely embarrassing – at one point, I was positive I saw a CGI squib explode a full 12 inches from where it should've landed on a gunshot victim – and the über-gory mayhem of the final 30 minutes becomes exhausting pretty quickly. Yet the choreography is more imaginatively executed than it was in, say, Boy Kills World earlier this year, and the rogue's gallery of John Wick-ian goons hired to assassinate Flood are a legitimately enjoyable bunch, the participants including Terry Crews as a heavily muscular smoothie, a pair of arms-carrying pole dancers, and two brutish Scotsmen whose profane dialogue is wisely (and, in a clever touch, inaccurately) subtitled. Beyond the modicum of enjoyment they provide, Bautista himself delivers a bunch, sharing unexpectedly charming rapport with Sofia Boutella as Flood's love interest and tender affection with Ben Kingsley (!) as Flood's mentor. And Pom Klementieff, Guardians of the Galaxy's adorable Mantis, is fantastic as the beguilingly named Marianna Antoinette, the vengeance-seeking organizer who keeps upping the fee for Flood's execution and, you sense, would love to take on the assignment herself. Suggestively teasing a lollipop while purring unrepeatable filth, Klenentieff is a hoot-and-a-half, and adds to the pleasure of The Killer's Game, despite its title and font, being a good deal better than generic.
