Kali Reis

(On Cable TV, September 2022) As I write this, Canada is in the middle of a years-long reckoning with its less-than-glorious past when it comes to its relationship with First Nations. That reckoning is manifesting itself in part by a wave of films tackling related topics—residential schools, science-fiction film showing First nation insurgency against white oppressors (or white zombies), horror films literalizing transgenerational trauma, revenge fantasies about missing and murdered indigenous women… it’s in that vein that I say that the most surprising thing about Catch the Fair One is that it’s not a Canadian movie. Set in the United States but otherwise tackling matters of Canadian interest, it tracks an ex-boxer as she infiltrates a prostitution ring, trying to find out what happened to her missing younger sister. From the get-go, this is not a cheerful film—shot near Buffalo, NY (explaining why it looks Canadian), the film is not interested in tidy glossy entertainment. Despite a muscular performance from boxer Kali Reis in the lead role, it’s a film that delights in gritty visuals, downbeat narrative and maximalist villains. As a thriller, it’s quite respectable, although the ending sinks it slightly for me—it smacks of learned helplessness to withhold satisfaction from the protagonist, as if there was no way for this all to end satisfactorily. Otherwise, I like a lot of what writer-director-producer Josef Kubota Wladyka is doing here, wrestling with issues from an insider’s perspective (compare and contrast: Wind River) and not flinching away. I just wish there would be bigger wins in the end.