
Hot Picks 
|
|
|
Black Bags
USA 2023
produced by Ron Wiskup, B.L. Fleischer, Josh Brandon, Peter Foldy, Scott J. Jones (executive), Oren Kamara (executive), Tai Truesdell (executive), Kendall Anlian (associate), Ricki Maslar (associate), Laura Vandervoort (associate), Olesya Rulin (associate) for Artist Vision Entertainment, Spitfire Cinema, RCR Cinema, Filmstreet Productions, High Flight Pictures
directed by Josh Brandon
starring Laura Vandervoort, Olesya Rulin, Ryan Francis, Drew Pollock, Pamela Bell, Jehnean Washington, Bruce Davis, Jaclyn Friedlander, Paula Jay Fairbrother, Christina Simone, Shawnda Rooney, Emerson Shouse, Miles Siess, Katie Pierce, Mark Shane Weathers
story by Adam Pachter, screenplay by Adam Pachter, Angela Bourassa, music by Michael Seth Cudd
review by Mike Haberfelner
|

|
Rather by chance, pregnant Tess (Olesya Rulin) meets Sara (Laura
Vandervoort) on a bus, and also rather by chance they have the same
destination and carry the same type of suitcase. They kind of get along
too, but split once the bus has arrived to go their separate ways. It's
only later that Sara suddenly ends up on Sara's door, and it seems they
have swapped suitcases on the bus - which is kind of a big deal for Tess
as there are pregnancy pills in her suitcase, but thanks to Sara, disaster
averted. Then though Sara's suitcase accidently springs open, and there's
a severed man's head inside. Which is too bad, because now Sara has to
force Tess to get rid of the head, and since Sara still has Tess's
pregnancy pills and there are only Tess's fingerprints on the suitcase,
there's little she can do but play game. And so, they head off to a nearby
abandoned chemical plant, throw the head into a vat of acid, and problem
solved. And Sara also tells Tess the story about the head, which makes her
sound less like a crazy woman who walks around with severed heads and more
like a loving mother - whose baby father has paid her hush money for 11
years to keep their daughter together a secret from his family, but now
that she asked for more money because her daughter's suffering from
cancer, he tried to kill her, and she really killed him in self defense,
then beheaded him in a fit of rage. And now she tried to plant the head on
an unsuspecting co-traveller to throw suspicion another way, but her
conscience got the better of her. But now that the head's dealt with, Sara
feels like a new woman - even if the affair has traumatized Tess quite a
bit. But Sara not only returns her pregnancy pills and walks out of her
life, she even treats her to a pie ... A pretty
cool mystery/suspense piece that actually starts rather unconspicuous and
seems to follow a certain psycho killer formula, only to attain more and
more layers the longer the film goes, and to more and more blur the lines
between good and evil while sending its two protagonists on two opposite
character arcs. And the two leads (and actually only two actual
characters) both give strong performances and are given enough space by a
suitably subtle direction to breathe life into their roles - which all
results in rather awesome genre entertainment.
|
|

|