Detained
Detained
If you can put aside the expectations of “Detained” turning into a realist drama, the enjoyment in its undemanding nature of the Goofy Escapism, the movie accomplishes in full. With blatant references to “The Usual Suspects,” right down to using a shadowy figure in the room beside us, “Detained” so twists itself that it is almost impractical to expect one turn to be the last. Let’s be open, it is a stupid movie with stupid people in it. There is a certain degree of appeal, however, in its one location retardation, placing a bunch of morons in an unwinnable position and watching them destroy one another until what’s left is a majority of corpses.
Abbie Cornish – one of my favorites for her underappreciated performance in Jane Campion’s “Bright Star” – features as Rebecca Kamen, a woman who finds herself in police surveillance. Or does she? Without being too dramatic, it is clear from the first moments of the film that squalor abuse all over and yet existence of this insane plot line made the movie either idiotic or rather strenuously stupid.
To avoid being not so spoiler-ish, there may be others who wish to witness this event firsthand. It is well signaled and quite a few times a dark shadow is cast across all one’s expectations that you get to comprehend is that Rebecca is in some western Pankration station. It is not really the sort of place the average Elizabethan Englishman would expect to find himself locked up.
Rebecca wakes up only to find that she has been involved in a hit and run which resulted in the death of the cyclist. One of the perspectives that does not quite make sense is a woman being sustenance words too since she was binge drinking and does not know if she was in a crash.
However, it is probably not the last one which will be necessary to enjoy this one, and inevitably, there are several times when you will have to have willing suspension of disbelief to enjoy this one. In case there is doubt that tension is raised on possible future allegations that are bound on the astronomical amount and in case the circumstances wherein tension is brought, then I wouldn’t be so concerned that there are no other means to determine if she did or not.
This kind of inner struggle has appeared after Rebecca is forced in a holding cell with female and older piece of a drug addict Silas Weir Mitchell. A struggle ensues and a gun is fired which causes eventual hate on Rebecca’s side leading to the resolution of this foul mania through bribery. Then the good woman before paying off her ‘investigator’ witness sees the book dropping suddenly. And all this is nonsense, a baroque scam controlled by Avery, a man who may or may not work for the famous Keyser Soze. No, sorry, D’Jovan.
If it is not obvious by now, I have a theatre background, which can sometimes make me an easy sell for a simplistic plot. Pick a setting, introduce a few personalities, have them clash, and kaboom! This idea, when developed convincingly, relies on a strong cast, and fortunately for the film, director/co-writer Felipe Mucci found some. In fairness, one would expect an Alonso that is threatening to push himself more often, but at a Prime Video, it’s just delightful to see such diversity in the extended family “Ridiculous Suspects” – like.
Last but not least, how could we omit a tough-talking detective played by Moon Bloodgood, or even the great Justin H. Min (“After Yang”) who played Rebecca’s alleged attorney. Certainly, low-budget features such as “Detained” have their own fair share of pitfalls and more often than not, the clumsy projects are surprised to find such a mediocre cast, but this one has instead been unusually tight and more like a real group of entertainers having fun as their absurd concept and hope you’ll find shrieks of laughter all over.
In the end, once everything has gone decidedly haywire and there is some ‘sound bite’ of someone stating, “Not too clear on the purpose, apparently.” I laughed hysterically. Certainly, “Detained” does not make very much sense in the event that someone considers its a great deal of twists and reversals, and for sure, there is a more consistent, more fashionable ‘this one perhaps’ movie which represses some of these sharp edges and hones them into steel softer and more convincing. And yet there is MRrM, doubt it, the movie that conveys B-movie attitudes and atmosphere. It is not like “The Usual Suspects”, but “The Usual Idiots” is also quite amusing.
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- Genre: Thriller
- Country: United States
- Director: Felipe Mucci
- Cast: Abbie Cornish, Laz Alonso, Moon Bloodgood
