Will Wernick

  • Follow Me aka No Escape (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2021) I don’t usually think that “dated” is a particularly good criticism — especially when you take the long view and see films years or decades later, causing the whole question to collapse on itself as “dated” becomes “period.” But in the here-and-now of 2021, a film like No Escape lands with a tired thud because it often feels like a mash-up of once-trendy elements and plot points stuffed into an overly familiar mess. Consider the premise in which an {influencer} goes to {eastern Europe} to participate in an {escape room} where he discovers that it’s {not a game} and tries to save himself and {his friends}. If you’re tired just reading these keywords, well, you haven’t seen the perfectly predictable ending, nor the nothingness that the film does with this obvious revelation. At this time, those past-prime trendy buzzwords are more annoying than anything else, and they’re not really excused by what will remain a lacklustre execution from writer-director Will Wernick. No Escape feels like a sad copy of the “vacationing Americans are stuck in a house of horror” subgenre, except with more emojis. (In other words, don’t expect viewers from 2050 to react any better to the film even if the “dated” element is made historical by accumulated decades. Although maybe they’ll laugh.)  There’s a modest amount of fun to be had watching in the film’s first act, as Keegan Allen plays an influencer with a decent amount of charisma, having fun in Moscow before the games begin. But once the characters are stuck in the usual industrial warehouse with the usual traps, No Escape’s already shaky interest disappears completely all the way to its wet thud of a conclusion. Technical credentials and visual quality are slightly higher than you’d expect from a low-budget horror rip-off, but make no mistake: this is still a horror rip-off.

  • Safer at Home (2021)

    Safer at Home (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2021) Despite what follows, I approached Safer at Home with the best intentions—I did! As of mid-2021, we’re hardly done tackling the COVID-19 pandemic in film format, and immediate takes such as this one can be helpful in capturing the madness of the moment. I’m also quite willing to entertain experiments with the film form, even if this means, for now, a spate of films inspired by videoconference calls. As Safer at Home begins, we’re clearly not meant to stay in the moment: A year or two from now, as an incredibly deadly “COVID-22-C” variant takes out millions of people per day, our characters are in their third year of lockdown, forced to celebrate their annual Vegas get-together virtually. Naturally, these bright lightbulbs conclude that the best way to do this is to simultaneously take a new experimental drug from Japan. If you’re thinking that this won’t end well, you have no idea—and you’re about to find out that “won’t end well” also applies to the film itself and not just the events happening within it. As mentioned, our characters aren’t the smartest teleworkers around—a trivial admission of a past sexual experience gets a couple arguing and by the time our other characters are retreating to the bedroom, bemoaning the drug trip or being distracted, one character is lying lifelessly on the floor and another one is protesting that he didn’t do anything. Rather than doing the sensible thing (or even any sensible thing), one dull-witted character goes running off in the streets, breaking curfew and attracting police attention but never ever turning off his cell phone screen even when it’s bathing him in light as he tries to hide. The rest of Safer at Home just keeps getting dumber and dumber, ending with a hysterical climax of police brutality that almost feels deserved as a consequence for being such morons throughout the entire film. What began as a semi-comic take on the pressures of confinement just turns stupider every five minutes, until we’ve completely lost sympathy for everyone involved and especially the guy who dies at the end. (Well, I did like Alisa Allapach’s performance, but she’s got the plum cuter-and-smarter role in a weak ensemble cast.)  Even the “twist” at the end can be seen long in advance. A lot of material is left untouched here, whether it’s the collective grief of a nation having lost 10% of its population, or the much-vaunted “drug trip” that doesn’t do much, or the impact of an oppressive police force. I still think Safer at Home had potential, but the dim-witted way writer-director Will Wernick goes about steadily wasting its potential is not the way to go.