Due to the overwhelming popularity of The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, M. Night Shyamalan has been pigeonholed as a director whose films always have a twist ending. While some of his movies after those two initial breakouts have indeed had third act rug-pulls, the majority of his work tends to be based on an elevator pitch of an idea that begs resolution. The Happening‘s was “why are people spontaneously killing themselves?” Old‘s was “what’s going on with this beach?” After Earth‘s was “who told Shyamalan it was a good idea to make this movie?” His latest high concept contraption, Knock At The Cabin, sports another tantalizing quandary but instead of the open-ended mystery that Shyamalan typically favors, there are really only one of two possible general resolutions for this specific gambit.

The story is set around a family of three — fathers Eric (Jonathan Groff) and Andrew (Ben Aldridge), along with their seven-year-old daughter Wen (Kristen Cui) — as they vacation at a secluded cabin in the woods. While collecting grasshoppers, Wen is approached outside the cabin by Leonard (Dave Bautista), a hulking second grade teacher who exchanges questions with her. Things get more ominous when three others in Leonard’s group — Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird), Adriane (Abby Quinn) and Redmond (Rupert Grint) — also emerge from the woods brandishing makeshift weapons. Wen runs inside to warn her dads of the approaching quarrelsome quartet, who force their way into the cabin after a struggle and make a severe claim: that one of the three family members must willingly sacrifice themselves in order to prevent a closely impending apocalypse.

It would stand to reason that the rest of Knock At The Cabin from that point on would be a psychological thriller, wherein the family being held hostage would engage in a battle of wits with the interlopers to gain the upper hand. But that’s already making the assumption that the invaders are incorrect and misguided in their conviction that the world will end very soon if this sacrificial act isn’t carried out. Shyamalan instead spends most of the running time setting up a binary equation where we won’t know whether or not the apocalyptic premonitions are founded until the very end of the movie. Not only does this limit the scope and impact of the inevitable conclusion but it makes the preceding events more redundant than they needed to be. Leonard poses the question “will you make a choice?” to the family repetitively and takes action when they routinely refuse to commit the necessary penance; in the immortal words of Rush: “if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.”

After Old, Knock At The Cabin is the second movie in a row that Shyamalan has adapted from existing source material; this time, he’s recruited co-writers Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman to bring Paul G. Tremblay’s novel The Cabin at the End of the World to the screen. While Old was seemingly affected by the fact that it was shot during the COVID-19 pandemic, with unappealing cinematography and awkward editing that tried to disguise that the actors weren’t on set at the same time, Shyamalan’s latest effort isn’t marred by the same issues. The camerawork by Jarin Blaschke and Lowell A. Meyer has some flashy tricks up its sleeve but mainly settles for a handsome yet foreboding palette upon which these characters can express their anxieties and intentions. A few sequences, like one in which two characters struggle for a gun in a thumbprint-locked safe, crackle with an energy that isn’t sustained throughout the movie.

Bautista continues a streak of acting wins following last year’s Glass Onion and a smaller part in Dune: Part One that will likely be expanded in Dune: Part Two later this year. As the main spokesman for the four antagonists, he proves that he has the dramatic chops to lead an ensemble chamber piece like this. As with other wrestlers-turned-actors, filmmakers have learned how to use his oversized frame to their advantage. Leonard is positioned as a gentle giant whose hand is forced by supernatural circumstances; in his introductory scene with Wen, the pair even take turns plucking flower petals to invite allusions to Frankenstein. Shyamalan is able to create suspense for a few minutes at a time but the longer Knock At The Cabin goes on, the more obvious it becomes that he loses sight of the story that he ultimately wants to tell.

Score – 2/5

New movies coming this weekend:
Coming only to theaters is Magic Mike’s Last Dance, the conclusion to the Magic Mike trilogy starring Channing Tatum and Salma Hayek Pinault following the titular male stripper as he heads to London with a wealthy socialite who lures him with the offer of a lifetime.
Streaming on Amazon is Somebody I Used To Know, a romantic comedy starring Alison Brie and Jay Ellis about a workaholic whose trip to her hometown reunites her with an ex-boyfriend and finds her meeting a young woman who reminds her of the person she used to be.
Premiering on Netflix is Your Place Or Mine, another romantic comedy starring Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher about a man who looks after the teenage son of his best friend while she pursues a lifelong dream as they swap houses for one life-changing week.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Infinity Pool, the new nightmare vision from Possessor writer/director Brandon Cronenberg, finds itself at the intersection of two thematic landscapes that have captured the zeitgeist as of late. Hit shows like The White Lotus and Nine Perfect Strangers involve mystery and intrigue among vacationers on opulent resorts, while movies like The Menu and newly-minted Best Picture nominee Triangle Of Sadness satirize the entitlement of the ultra-wealthy. Even with these touch points intact, viewers should know that Cronenberg’s latest incorporates elements of body horror and hard sci-fi that push his film into territory that will likely make casual audiences uncomfortable. But those who go along for the ride will have their eyes widened and buttons pushed in a mostly productive fashion.

Though it was shot in Croatia, Infinity Pool takes place on the fictional island of Li Tolqa, where author James Foster (Alexander Skarsgård) and his wife of 10 years Em (Cleopatra Coleman) find themselves visiting an all-inclusive resort. While on the beach one day, James is approached by Gabi (Mia Goth), a fellow guest at the resort who professes to James her fandom of his first novel and invites the couple to dinner with her and hubby Alban (Jalil Lespert). The quartet are brought close together after an off-resort jaunt takes them to the crime-addled countryside but the drunken drive back to their hotel yields an unexpected tragedy. After facing charges for their crimes by the local police, an alternative solution of twisted metaphysical justice is proposed to atone for their sins.

The trailers put out by Infinity Pool‘s distributor NEON have given far too many plot details away but it’s enough to say that the fallout from James’ punishment binds him to a group of hedonistic tourists who have their run of the resort and the surrounding area. Cronenberg’s commentary on the super rich and their propensity to operate outside society’s rules isn’t overwhelmingly nuanced but the class critique is only part of what he has on his mind. As with Possessor, this is a film that is meant to provoke our sense of what it means to be human and to live our lives as prisoners inside our own bodies. We see James tempted with desires of the flesh and forced with the decision to either break the cycle of depravity or succumb to its machinations.

Skarsgård is a fine audience surrogate, being slowly drawn into this band of miscreants even after his wife hightails it back to the States and he conveniently can’t find his passport to join her. It’s a 180-degree shift from his testosterone-fueled titular role in The Northman last year, channeling his inner schlub as an emasculated and insecure writer desperate for another hit. Goth was outstanding in companion horror films X and Pearl last year and she continues her winning streak here with a role that starts simple and seductive but morphs into something more sadistic and, at times, hilariously over-the-top. A scene late in the film, in which Gabi is drinking wine on the hood of a very slow-moving car, is scathing and darkly funny but also menacing and deranged at the same time. As with the cinematography in the rest of the movie, DP Karim Hussain nails the claustrophobic close-ups in this sequence.

Though the look of Infinity Pool is far grimier and asymmetrical than the aesthetic Stanley Kubrick favored throughout his filmography, Cronenberg seems to either intentionally or unintentionally channel narrative threads from several of his projects. The criminal atrocities carried out by the privileged ne’er-do-wells ironically mirror the acts of ultraviolence committed by the impoverished droogs in A Clockwork Orange. There are psychedelic sequences — photosensitivity warnings at the beginning of movies and TV shows are becoming more common these days and Infinity Pool certainly earns its disclaimer — that carry overtones from both 2001: A Space Odyssey and Eyes Wide Shut. Naturally, horror masterpiece The Shining is also referenced in shared themes including unraveling of identity and patterns of reincarnation. Infinity Pool may be too unpleasant for general audiences but its shock value is often matched by the heady ambition right below the surface.

Score – 3.5/5

New movies coming this weekend:
Coming only to theaters is Knock At The Cabin, a psychological horror movie starring Dave Bautista and Jonathan Groff about a family of three on vacation that is suddenly held hostage by four strangers who demand they sacrifice one of their own to avert the apocalypse
Also playing only in theaters is 80 For Brady, a sports comedy starring Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda depicting four elderly female friends as they travel to Houston to watch their hero Tom Brady and the New England Patriots play in Super Bowl LI.
Streaming on Netflix is True Spirit, a based-on-a-true-story adventure starring Teagan Croft and Anna Paquin about a tenacious Australian teen who chases her dreams and faces her fears as she sets out to become the youngest person to sail solo around the world.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Playing at Cinema Center starting this weekend, the indie dramedy When You Finish Saving The World stars Stranger Things‘ Finn Wolfhard as Ziggy Katz, a high school student desperately trying to discover himself. Using a live streaming platform called Hi-Hat, he routinely performs original music for his 20,000 Followers all over the world, which doesn’t quite register with his parents Evelyn (Julianne Moore) and Roger (Jay O. Sanders). Also underwhelmed by his online success is Lila (Alisha Boe), a fellow student that Ziggy has developed a crush on due to her impassioned lunchtime political exchanges. The film also follows Evelyn and her work at a domestic abuse shelter, where she attempts to make a connection with Kyle (Billy Bryk), the teenage son of a woman seeking refuge at the Spruce Haven shelter.

Though the film’s title is never actually uttered by any of the characters, the phrase that gives When You Finish Saving The World its name is fitting for a movie whose two primary protagonists are both unknowingly narcissistic and self-righteous. The central irony of the story is that despite this common ground, Ziggy and Evelyn have a stilted relationship where they just can’t seem to see themselves in one another. It’s obvious that the pair will reach some kind of reconciliation by the end of the brisk 87-minute runtime but thanks to a pithy script by writer-director Jesse Eisenberg, the journey getting there is piquant and piercing. Adapting from his Audible audio drama of the same name, Eisenberg restructures his story around the mother-son dysfunction that has the most narrative potency.

Along the way, When You Finish Saving The World pokes fun at the wince-inducing paths that young people often take in trying to figure out who they want to be. Ziggy and Lila meet up multiple times at a “Revolutionary Arts” gathering, a sort of open mic where over-earnest teens trade spoken-word and song-based offerings in an effort to one-up each other. “This is about the patriarchy, of which I’m a reluctant member,” a young boy dramatically laments before sharing a poem. When it’s Ziggy’s turn to perform an original tune, his lyrics about graduating and loneliness fall flat for an audience preening for something more sociopolitically enlightened. Still, he remains undeterred and his braggadocious passes at Lila contribute to the film’s finest moments of cringe comedy.

In juxtaposing his day-to-day with Evelyn’s, Eisenberg suggests that she isn’t any less guilty than her son of trying too hard when it comes to social interactions. She often comes off so severe to most that when she attempts to make small talk with a Spruce Haven secretary while waiting for an elevator, the receptionist feels the need to clarify that she’s not about to be terminated. Moore adds all sorts of touches to her performance that help us understand how someone so stern in their usual disposition could still come across as empathetic in specific contexts. She exudes the expected patience and understanding during intake with abuse survivors but when Ziggy says he needs “five seconds” to get ready, Evelyn looks down at her watch and counts to five in her head before walking out the door.

Though the film takes place in Indiana (Bloomington, specifically) and there are allusions to IU and the Pacers, When You Finish Saving The World was shot in both New Mexico and Canada, likely due to their respective tax incentives for the film industry. Eisenberg reportedly moved to Bloomington with his wife Anna during the pandemic lockdown of 2020 and his newfound affection for the area and its people comes through in his directorial debut. It’s unfortunate that Indiana is 1 of 16 States that doesn’t currently extend tax incentive programs for film productions, even for smaller-budget projects like this one. Until that changes, Hoosiers will likely have to settle for the occasional movie like When You Finish Saving The World that is set here, even if it’s not actually shot in-state.

Score – 3.5/5

More new movies coming this weekend:
Playing only in theaters is Missing, a screenlife thriller starring Storm Reid and Ken Leung about a teenager who begins using various technologies to find her missing mother after she disappears on vacation in Colombia with her then-new boyfriend.
Also playing in theaters is That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime: Scarlet Bond, an anime film starring Ricco Fajardo and Kristen McGuire which adapts the TV series about a super-powered being and his companions who get involved in a long-running conspiracy that swirls around a woman with a mysterious power.
Streaming on Netflix is JUNG_E, a science fiction movie starring Kang Soo-yeon and Kim Hyun-joo where the outcome of a civil war hinges on cloning the brain of an elite soldier to create a robot mercenary.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

After delivering a modern whodunnit classic with Knives Out a few years ago, writer/director Rian Johnson captures lightning in a bottle again with Glass Onion, a murder-mystery whose delights somehow surpass its predecessor. Retaining only the steely detective from the first entry, this superior sequel sheds the blustery autumn setting of the original and acclimates to a tropical locale for even bigger twists and laughs this time around. Though Johnson is clearly modeling the style of these films from Agatha Christie’s mystery novels, he’s much more successful in creating his own tantalizing stories than Kenneth Branagh has been at adapting Christie’s books like Death on the Nile from earlier this year. Johnson showcases his love for the classics in the genre while including modern elements that make it feel essential to our current place in history. This is one of 2022’s finest entertainments.

Two months into the covid pandemic, world-class detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is already feeling pent-up and is itching to solve his next great case when one conveniently presents itself in the form of a mystery box that is delivered to his door. The sender is Miles Bron (Edward Norton), the billionaire owner of the Google-like company Alpha, who is hosting a murder-mystery party on his private island near Greece. Other recipients of the invitation package include Alpha head scientist Lionel Toussaint (Leslie Odom Jr.) and Miles’s ex-business partner Andi Brand (Janelle Monáe), along with famous figures like fashionista Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson) and vlogger Duke Cody (Dave Bautista). Though the game is obviously not supposed to involve an actual murder, it doesn’t take long after the guests arrive on the island for the game to turn into a search for an actual killer.

Many cinematic whodunnits revolve around the strength of their respective ensemble casts and as with Knives Out, Johnson and his team have brought forth a formidable company for Glass Onion. Aside from some cheeky cameos and name drops, the central cast, which also includes up-and-comers like Jessica Henwick and Madelyn Cline, plays beautifully off one another, even when they’re not in the same room. When each of the characters receives their mystery box, they hop on a communal phone call with each other to solve each of the puzzles together to get to the invitation stored inside. As we learn, these people have a long collective history, which provides them each with potential motive to be a murderer but also a potential alibi for wanting the victim to stay alive.

Johnson has penned some terrific scripts in the past but his screenplay for Glass Onion just may be his best so far. Beyond providing a whodunnit that is both rich with structural complexity and yet elegant in its rhetorical simplicity, this film speaks to pressing cultural themes that will resonate with audiences more than any other movie this year. The social separation created by the pandemic, the rise in trickle-up entitlement and façade of celebrity superiority are just a few trends that Johnson weaves within his tale of deceit and betrayal. As one may expect, this is a movie that doubles back on itself multiple times in order to show us different angles from myriad perspectives and give us enough pieces to complete the puzzle. There’s a running joke about Blanc’s resentment for the popular board game Clue but there’s something in all of us that yearns to be a sleuth and Glass Onion satisfies this urge.

Though this film isn’t a straight-ahead comedy, it has some of the best laugh lines of any movie so far this year, regardless of genre. A slow-building revelation between Birdie and her assistant and a pair of outfit choices in a flashback montage are just a couple examples of the film’s funniest moments. Miles’ guests do have aspects in common and areas of similarity but the ways in which they differ create plenty of opportunity to playfully bounce off of one another. The majority of the characters are smart but may have blindspots that limit their intellect, while others are more dim by comparison but have instances of clarity and insight that give them the upper hand when they typically wouldn’t. No matter how smart someone in the movie may or may not be, there’s no denying that Johnson is a mastermind when it comes to telling this sort of constantly-shifting whodunnit that has layers of brilliance ready to peel.

Score – 4.5/5

Movies coming to theaters this weekend:
Babylon, starring Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie, is a period dramedy which chronicles the rise and fall of multiple characters during Hollywood’s transition from silent to sound films in the late 1920s.
Puss In Boots: The Last Wish, starring Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek, is an animated adventure continuing the story of the titular swashbuckling feline fugitive as he sets out on an epic journey to restore all nine of his lives.
I Wanna Dance With Somebody, starring Naomi Ackie and Stanley Tucci, is a musical biopic that takes a look at the life and career of singer and cultural icon Whitney Houston.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

After winning Academy Awards for Best Director back-to-back years for Birdman and The Revenant, Alejandro González Iñárritu had many doors open to him in terms of what project to pursue next. That he walked through the one labeled “creative control with Netflix” is not surprising, given the kind of story he had in mind, but no less disappointing upon the final result. Bardo, False Chronicle Of A Handful Of Truths is very obviously the most personal film Iñárritu has made thus far but it’s also the most stubbornly formless and painfully pretentious one as well. It’s a remarkably self-involved effort from a director who isn’t known for modesty to begin with and while it’s a project that may mean a great deal to him, there’s simply no room left in the audience for us to take this story in.

Bardo loosely chronicles the day-to-day affairs of Mexican filmmaker/journalist Silverio Gama (Daniel Giménez Cacho), who lives in Los Angeles with his wife Lucía (Griselda Siciliani) and teenage son Lorenzo (Iker Sanchez Solano). He’s in line to receive a coveted journalism award in the States, about which he has mixed feelings because he senses that it’s due to geopolitical glad-handing more than his merit. His insecurity about his work is exacerbated by Luis (Francisco Rubio), a talk show host who was once friends with Silverio but jettisoned their relationship during the respective rises to fame. Along the way, he also tries to patch things up with his estranged daughter Camila (Ximena Lamadrid), who is living in America as well, before receiving the commendation for his life’s work.

But Bardo isn’t driven by plot as much as it’s jerked in different directions by the protagonist’s indulgent reveries, which take up the majority of the 160-minute runtime. These tangents naturally cause the audience to speculate whether these scenes are happening in reality or just in Silverio’s head but after a while, it’s unlikely they’ll care much either way. The surrealist sequences implement imagery from a host of origins, including figures from the Mexican–American War and conquistadors from centuries earlier who come to life before Silverio’s eyes. Sometimes the scenes are more along the lines of heightened reality, as when Silverio imagines a worst-case scenario talk show interview after he cancels at the last minute. There’s a darkly comedic running gag about a baby that Silverio and Lucía lost shortly after labor that weaves in gallows humor quite deftly.

There’s a running subtext in Bardo about Silverio’s (and, presumably, Iñárritu’s) internal conflict between living in the United States and yet still feeling like his home is still south of the border. When Silverio returns to Mexico and attends a party for his upcoming award, members of his extended family repeatedly rib him about sucking up to the “gringos” in Hollywood. There’s a lengthy sequence in which he recalls his emigration process to the US and then another in airport security where his citizenship is called into question by a couple TSA agents. Iñárritu obviously has a unique perspective on being torn between two countries that don’t fully accept him and him trying to work out these feelings through this film are by far its most illuminating aspects.

If he had made a movie that was more focused on this subject — or just more focused overall — it could have worked but there’s just too much filler that adds up to nothing. Iñárritu has showcased influence from cinematic luminaries like Fellini and Buñuel in the past but in trying to emulate the masters, he flies too close to the sun this time around. Luis gives an excoriating speech to Silverio about halfway through the film, concerning what he thinks about his new documentary, and it’s clear Iñárritu wrote in an attempt to inoculate himself from potentially similar criticisms about Bardo. The attempt at self-deprecation whiffs more of defensiveness than the worthwhile self-awareness that the filmmaker was able to mine more successfully in Birdman. When Netflix distributed Roma with Alfonso Cuarón in 2018, it was a love letter to his upbringing in Mexico City but by comparison, Bardo, False Chronicle Of A Handful Of Truths feels like a love letter Iñárritu wrote to himself.

Score – 2/5

More movies coming this weekend:
Playing only in theaters is Avatar: The Way of Water, the highly-anticipated sci-fi epic starring Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldaña continuing the story of the Na’vi alien race and the fight to protect their planet Pandora against a familiar threat.
Streaming on Amazon Prime is Nanny, a horror movie starring Anna Diop and Michelle Monaghan about an immigrant caretaker based in New York City who is forced to confront a concealed truth that threatens to shatter her precarious American Dream.
Screening at Cinema Center is Triangle of Sadness, a dark comedy starring Woody Harrelson and Charlbi Dean centering around a fashion model celebrity couple who join a cruise for the super-rich that doesn’t go according to plan.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

There have been numerous cinematic adaptations of Carlo Collodi’s children’s book The Adventures of Pinocchio over the years, so perhaps it was inevitable that two would arrive in the same year. 3 months after Disney released a live-action “reimagining” of their own 1940 classic, Netflix responds with their own version of Pinocchio, a stop-motion effort co-directed and co-written by Guillermo del Toro. I could compare and contrast these two movies for the rest of this review but the important takeaway is that Disney’s film is another cynical re-do that drains the life from its predecessor and while Netflix’s film isn’t a masterpiece, it’s leagues more inspired by comparison. As one would expect, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio is a darker and more complex tale but still carries out the original novel’s timeless themes.

This version of the story takes place in 1930s Italy, where woodcarver Geppetto (David Bradley) bitterly grieves over the loss of his only son due to an errant bomb dropping from a wartime plane. After a battle with the bottle one evening, Geppetto crafts a wooden puppet resembling his lost boy in a traumatized frenzy. In the middle of the night, a wood sprite (Tilda Swinton) gives life to the pine creation and when Geppetto wakes up, he meets Pinocchio (Gregory Mann), who sounds and behaves like his late son. In his effort to become a real boy, Pinocchio encounters the proverbial angel and devil on his wooden shoulders, in the form of Sebastian J. Cricket (Ewan McGregor) and Count Volpe (Christoph Waltz), respectively.

Most of Pinocchio plays out in the way that you would expect from horror/dark fantasy maestro Guillermo del Toro putting his own twist on the classic fable. Reminiscent of his finest film Pan’s Labyrinth, the specters of war and ultra-nationalism loom large over this story about the good and evil of the world seen through the eyes of a young soul. Volpe’s carny huckster wouldn’t be out of place in last year’s Nightmare Alley and the sea-set finale with The Dogfish (named Monstro in the 1940 Disney version) recalls the marine creature work from Best Picture winner The Shape of Water. There’s inevitable Henry Selick influence in a recurring purgatorial gag and the associated appearances of Death (also voiced by Tilda Swinton) reminded me of the endlessly creepy Mysterious Stranger sequence from 1985’s The Adventures of Mark Twain.

Aside from being the umpteenth cinematic variation of this fairy tale, Pinocchio does commit some unforced errors that aren’t necessarily tied to its companion pieces. While the musical score by Alexandre Desplat is transportive, the songs sung by the characters feel like an afterthought and whiff of forced whimsy to counteract the film’s darker nature. Waltz is perfectly menacing as always in his villainous role but the overly-peppy voicework from Gregory Mann as the protagonist becomes grating and one-note after a while. There are also some inspired tertiary voice casting choices, like Cate Blanchett as a mostly non-verbal monkey and Tom Kenny (known as the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants) as Benito Mussolini The stop-motion figures and set designs are immaculate and filled with rich detail but some of the CG, especially the animation of children’s faces, pales in comparison to the traditionally rendered effects

Now that we’re towards the end of the year, it’s worth reflecting on how strong a year this has been for stop-motion animated features, even without a new film from Laika Studios. This is a strong foray into the genre by Guillermo del Toro and in addition to Pinocchio, Netflix alone has released two other stop-motion movies — The House way back in January and Wendell & Wild, more recently — that are excellent exemplifiers for the genre. When you include Marcel the Shell with Shoes On and Mad God, two films that couldn’t be more different in terms of subject matter and tone, you get a sense of just how varied of films this style of animation can produce. Stop motion is obviously a labor-intensive and meticulous breed of filmmaking but banner years like this one prove how vital the work can be to the world of cinema.

Score – 3.5/5

More movies coming this weekend:
Coming back to theaters is Father Stu: Reborn, a PG-13 cut of the titular drama released earlier this year starring Mark Wahlberg and Mel Gibson about a boxer-turned-Catholic priest who lives with a progressive muscle disorder.
Also playing only in theaters is The Mean One, a Christmas horror movie starring David Howard Thornton and Krystle Martin about a woman who witnesses her parents’ murder at the hands of a green monster as a child and seeks to avenge their deaths 20 years later.
Streaming on Apple TV+ is Emancipation, a historical action film starring Will Smith and Ben Foster about a runaway slave who forges through the swamps of Louisiana on a tortuous journey to escape plantation owners that nearly killed him.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup