Solid
Summary
Dynamite performances by the two leads and a (mostly) satisfying ending overshadow the sometimes-ho-hum story.
Plot: Badly burned twins Racine (Kara Young) and Anaia (Mallori Johnson) hunt for their sadistic father (Sterling K. Brown), who burned them and their mom (Vivica A. Fox).
Summary: Ah, the revenge tale. On a long day when you have to endure random rudeness from strangers and irritating incompetence from some peers, a revenge flick is always a nice balm for the burning soul on a Tuesday night. The trailer for this film looked like it promised some satisfying action and carnage to those who undoubtedly deserved it; therefore, it was an easy choice for me to check out.
As far as the story goes, it wasn’t as satisfying as I thought it would be. This movie had the potential to be a really crazy, messed-up, almost hilarious story of two sisters who the world has disregarded for their disfigurement getting revenge on a world that has marginalized them. Instead, you get a lot of them going around from place to place, meeting people who knew their father after he left them to burn. Most of those people have been traumatized because of those experiences. In the case of Mykelti Williamson’s character, it’s hilarious what he’s doing while waiting for their father’s return. In others, it’s just shrug-inducing.
That means that although the movie is not boring by any stretch, it still has moments of lull in its 100-minute run time. That doesn’t mean it’s boring, but when the central focus is their search for their father, who is already almost legendary in his evil, the story should remember that. Having the sisters interact with the families he’s left behind or is currently living with doesn’t really do anything. If you’re going to make those side characters the focus of most of the movie, make them more memorable, or at least passable threats to the sisters.
I did enjoy certain aspects of the filmmaking itself. Having the flashback scenes in black-and-white gave the movie a grittier vibe that definitely helped with the subject matter. Choosing not to show the father clearly until the very end gave him an aura of mystery and was jarring when he was finally shown to look so ordinary. The soundtrack was well thought out and provided a nice backdrop to the story at times. While the exteriors and interiors of the locations were not particularly memorable, they had a deep Southern charm.
The two sisters’ characters were a plus. Kara Young is combustible and magnetic as the temperamental Racine. I especially liked the opening scene where her character beats the crap out of a bunch of kids (off-screen) with a bat for taunting her sister. Mallori Johnson was poised and sympathetic as the temperate Anaia, a nice counterpoint to her twin. Sterling K. Brown was perfectly terrifying as their father – he would be reasonable and charming in one breath, then over-the-top violent in the next. His getting his ass kicked at the end was the most satisfying part of the entire movie by far – and be forewarned, something happens at the end that you won’t call.
Overall, this was a solid movie. I don’t know if I would watch it more than once, but I was glad that I gave it a watch. It allowed me to appreciate the talents of the two main actresses (and the operative word there is talent), and the filmmaking was intelligent and added to the narrative. It’s worth a look.