Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. When I was a bit overhyped on The Witch my mind turned to the other hugely hyped film at the fest. Jeremy Saulnier's Green Room has been getting out of this world word of mouth since it debuted at Cannes. Considering I kind of worship at the altar of Blue Ruin I was about as primed for this movie as one could possibly be.
And the movie lived up to it.
Green Room isn't a complicated movie to describe. It's Assault on Precinct 13 in a punk club but way, way more violent (and that's saying something when you consider Assault opens with a little girl getting blown away).
It might be a simple set up, but Saulnier once again proves his mettle for visual storytelling as he constantly ratchets up the tension. This little story never feels small because of the fun character work and smart way Saulnier sets up the geography of the building we spend most of our time in.
He also handles escalation brilliantly. There's a game of chess going on between our hapless poor punk rockers and a White Power gang, led surprisingly by Sir Patrick Stewart, and the leads are helplessly out matched. The thugs are brutal, Stewart is coldly brilliant and these punk kids are just trying to survive.
The secret to Saulnier's success here is how escalates the stakes. At the beginning the punk group (comprised of Anton Yelchin, Alia Shawkat, Joe Cole and Callum Turner) is just desperate enough to play an out of the way club whose clientele happen to be mostly skinheads. They're not all that comfortable with the situation, but when you have to cypher gas from parked cars to make it to your next gig you don't get to be picky.
Their problems begin when they see something they shouldn't and in a flash we move from an uncomfortable situation to a life or death struggle for survival.
What's great about this film is that nobody is ever fully in control with the possible exception of Patrick Stewart. But our heroes sure as hell don't know what the hell to do. Every idea floated is full of self-doubt and every time they decide on a course of action they fumble their way through it.
The film is a great example of two steps forward and one step back. Nothing is gained without a cost and the cast is so charismatic that when the violence starts you feel it. You care about these crazy, pathetic bastards. Because you do you really feel it when they start taking damage and the band is whittled down one by one.
To say more would be to ruin some fun surprises, but I will leave off by once again underlining how brutal and involving the film is. You're trapped with these guys and in a weird way can even see where the baddies are coming from. I mean, they're still Nazis and don't care about murdering some fools, but they have their own logic for what they do and we see many different factions of the bad guys army, all with different semi-logical motivations.
Blue Ruin may have had a deeper impact on me, but Green Room is one I can see revisiting more. It's just a fun watch and will be one of those films that you want to introduce to people.
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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