Green Room

I was fairly impressed with Jeremy Saulnier's BLUE RUIN, enough so to investigate 2015's GREEN ROOM, which he also wrote and directed.  The premise piqued interest, too: a punk rock band find themselves trapped in a skinhead club and have to fight/shoot their way out after they complete their set and find a corpse.   That is as good a starting point as any for a horror cum action film, and the possibilities almost develop themselves.  Even with a smidge of imagination.  And Saulnier certainly proved himself before.

But....I didn't love this movie.  I liked it, and there is no mistake that it is a well mounted, tense thriller.  But it looked and felt like many other undistinguished contemporary genre pics.  I felt that Saulnier wasn't quite sure if he wanted to have stronger political and social allusions in his movie, leaving it feeling a bit half baked in that regard.   Leaving it up to the viewer to make connections that maybe the creator didn't intend, but doesn't that describe many, if not most, works of fiction?

The Ain't Rights are said punk band who are flat broke, siphoning gas just to get to their next shitty gig.  One is in a restaurant where the compensation is rice and beans and about $7 for each band member.  They are also rather indecisive about their Desert Island musical artist.  Quite surprisingly, one mentions Steely Dan.  Donald and Walter did have a punk sensibility at times.

Through a DJ the quartet (Pat, Sam, Reece, and Tiger) get a more promising date that pays well.  Too bad it's at a venue that features Neo-Nazis and National Socialist black metal bands.  The DJ warns The Ain't Rights to avoid talking politics and just shut up and play.  After an iffy start, the crowd seems to dig 'em.  They get their money and are almost home free...until Sam remembers she left her cell phone charging in the green room.  By now, the headlining act is there.  A girl is on the floor, dead, with a knife stuck in her temple. Pat manages to call the police, but his band is then held captive back in the green room until the bar's employees, led by Darcy (played robotically by Patrick Stewart), figure out a cover.  It does not look promising for their survival.

Saulnier provided some horrific, brutal moments of violence and gore in GREEN ROOM.  I imagine it will satisfy these type of fans.  He also establishes a grimy, claustrophobic atmosphere that works in the film's favor.  But I never felt the urgency.  The characters were finally just not that interesting, and I stopped caring about them or their fates early on.  The actors are fine, and include the late Anton Yelchin and Imogen Poots, but Saulnier's script merely puts them in a cat and mouse that you've seen many times.    And they're not as well defined as hoped.  Likewise for the right-wingers, who while admirably not drawn in easy stereotypes are just shadowy and dull.