by Anthony O'Connor
Worth: $14.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Rachel McAdams, Dylan O'Brien, Edyll Ismail, Dennis Haysbert, Xavier Samuel, Chris Pang
Intro:
Engaging, fast-paced and buoyed by two great performances, it’s a fun comedy thriller that will keep you guessing, laughing and, occasionally, wincing.
It’s always good news when Sam Raimi has a new movie coming out. The endlessly creative, uber talented director is best known for the original Evil Dead trilogy (the second film of which is one of the greatest works of horror cinema), the original Spider-Man trilogy (the second film of which is one of the greatest works of superhero cinema), but the dude is also responsible for some fantastic one shot flicks. You’ve got the kinetic The Quick and the Dead (1995), the brutal A Simple Plan (1998) and the wonderfully twisted Drag Me to Hell (2009), not to mention 1990’s Darkman (which isn’t technically a one-shot because they blurted out a couple of straight-to-video sequels ol’ mate had nothing to with). You’ve also got Oz the Great and Powerful and For the Love of the Game but hey, no one bats a thousand. Raimi’s latest one shot is the tense, funny two-hander Send Help, which takes place on a deserted island that is anything but idyllic.
Send Help is the story of Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams), an overworked, underappreciated member of a big company’s Planning and Strategy Department. Linda’s been hustling her clack off attempting to impress the dismissive douche of a new CEO, Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien) but loses the big promotion to one of his golfing buddies, Donovan (Xavier Samuel). Worse still, Bradley straight up finds the dowdy Linda off-putting and is looking for an excuse to fire her. He reluctantly agrees to let Linda attend a work-related trip to Bangkok but on the way over their plane crashes into the ocean and Linda and an injured Bradley are the only two survivors. The power dynamic has shifted, and now Bradley is alone on a deserted island with a woman who is shockingly well equipped to deal with the wilderness and perhaps not the most mentally stable of creatures.
At its core, Send Help is a tense two-hander in the style of Misery but with Raimi’s mixture of screwball comedy and genuinely disturbing (albeit cartoonish) violence. Much of the film rests on the shoulders of McAdams and O’Brien and, happily, the pair are more than up to the task. Watching Linda slowly transform from an awkward, apologetic nobody to a suntanned queen of the jungle is a delight and she has great chemistry with O’Brien, whose Bradley is also revealed to be more than just the one note corporate bro that we first meet. There are also some neat twists, particularly in the third act, that keep the flick humming along nicely.
On the downside, the CGI – for some of the action scenes and landscape shots – is shockingly bad. A couple of moments during the plane crash felt like they’d dropped in first draft footage and a bunch of other sequences are dodgy as hell. It’s not a deal-breaker, mind you, but it’s a bit jarring in beats that would otherwise have been much more effective. Also, the script from Damian Shannon and Mark Swift (the scribes who previously penned the Friday the 13th remake and Baywatch movie) never rises above the level of serviceable. This is a bummer because an extra draft or two that tightened the screws and gave a more consistent sense of rising tension could have elevated the material.
Still and all, a new Sam Raimi movie is here and it’s pretty good. Engaging, fast-paced and buoyed by two great performances, it’s a fun comedy thriller that will keep you guessing, laughing and, occasionally, wincing. Send Help isn’t the second coming of Raimi, but it’s an entertaining time at the movies and a decent work from the king. As a wise man once said, “Hail to the king, baby.”
