Do
sudden catastrophes bring out the best or the worst in people? If you actually
read actual boots-on-the-ground eyewitness reports, you invariably hear much
more about folks rising to the occasion and neighbors helping neighbors. However,
national media reports, typically filed from New York, trafficking rumors heard
at the press club, are more likely to tell tales of looting and the like. That
pessimistic view of humanity in times of crisis is particularly pronounced in
Hollywood disaster movies. It is fair to ask whether those films are
conditioning us to be worse people than we would otherwise be. Such is also the
case in this undefined bio-outbreak survivalist drama. It will be every family
for themselves in Trey Edward Shults’ It
Comes at Night (trailer
here),
which opens this Friday in New York.
The
origins and vectors of the highly contagious doomsday virus are never really
explained, but it seems to produce zombie like effects. Paul is the sort of
person who comes hardwired to survive. When his father-in-law shows rabid signs
of infection, Paul does what need to be done. He will do anything to protect
his wife Sarah and their son Travis. However, when a desperate father invades
their fortified cabin in search of water for his wife and young son, Paul is
persuaded by Sarah to join forces with them. They have a water supply and a
reinforced shelter. Will and Kim have livestock. It is a win-win for bother
families. Yet, Paul still cautions Travis to only trust their nuclear family.
The
two families get along swimmingly for about ten minutes, before suspicion
starts to set in again, particularly on Paul’s part. Frankly, their falling out
is as predictable as the phases of the moon. Indeed, that is the whole problem
with ICAN. Bad things start to
happen, simply because it is the time when those sorts of plot points typically
surface in movies.
It
is really a shame, because Shults does a masterful job setting the mood and
establishing the mise en scene. In all honesty, ICAN is often remarkably intense, especially during the murky,
flashlight-lit night-time scenes. There are times when the audience has no idea
what is going on—and it is terrifying. Unfortunately, the fear and paranoia
that fragments their alliance feels like it unfolds in agonizingly slow motion.
In fact, it is so easy to see it coming, somebody ought to be able to stop it.
Still,
Paul is the sort of tightly wound brooder Joel Edgerton was born to play.
Frankly, it is an unfair dramatic mismatch when he hulks over twerpy
Christopher Abbott as the supposedly wiry-tough Will. On the plus side, Kelvin
Harrison Jr. shows real star potential as Travis, but rather frustratingly
Carmen Ejogo and Riley Keogh are largely dramatically subservient to Edgerton
and Abbott, as Sarah and Kim, respectively. At least Mikey is rock-solid
dependable as Travis’s loyal dog Stanley (but sensitive viewers should not get
too attached).
