Swing Low aka Ravage (2019)

(On Cable TV, September 2021) The first impression you get from Ravage is that it’s an aggressive movie: The opening credits smash-cuts to the entire screen, as a loud soundtrack lets you know that, no, it’s not meant to be a snooze. But aggressiveness carries a price — you have to be able to back it up with substance, otherwise it becomes hollow posturing. As Ravage advances, however, it becomes increasingly obvious that it doesn’t have anything under the surface — and the unusually shoddy ending merely puts the rotten cherry on top of a rancid sundae. The basics of the plot aren’t difficult at all — in fact, they harken back to the most basic plot in the business, as a female protagonist out in a deeply rural area sees a crime committed by local hooligans and must run for her life. Moments later, we’re well in revenge thriller territory, and the rest of how that goes should be familiar… if writer-director Teddy Grennan knew what he was doing. But either he doesn’t, or he seeks to do things so differently that he loses sight of why formulas work when they’re done well. Starting with an idiotic framing device that tells you the end of the story before it even begins (and then doesn’t link the end of the story to the framing device — so sloppy), Ravage is alternately boring and stupid, subverting expectations by taking the single worst decision at every step of the way. This is a film that labours under the misapprehension that the protagonist not taking revenge in a revenge story is the kind of thing that will have audiences nodding in agreement. To be fair, Grennan’s direction is slightly better than his writing — although the limits of the film’s budget and intentions are obvious in its shakycam style. If you make it to the end of the film hoping for retribution, sorry for your inconvenience because Ravage then leaps into one of the dumbest climaxes in recent memory, having the antagonist sew the heroine inside a cow in the hopes that bovine stomach acid will dissolve her, which is gruesome but almost unimaginably stupid considering that A> she won’t fit; B> cow stomach acid is notoriously weak; C> it’s a plan that takes the cake in the “most needlessly convoluted complication in the way to the heroine’s escape” category—which you see right before the film ends, not bothering with an ending. On the flip side, it’s that final touch of terrible ideas that sends any appreciation of the film flying from loathing to mild mockery. The result isn’t anything fit to recommend to anyone, and it exposes Ravage’s initial aggressiveness for the hollow façade that it can’t support.