I don’t technically have a favorite film genre. I know horror fans really like their horror films and a lot of baby boomers really like their classic movies, but I honestly enjoy watching just about any type of genre. If I had to pick a genre that I enjoy more than others though I would probably say thrillers. I’m a big Alfred Hitchcock fan and I guess there is just something unique I find about a good thriller. Now being a fan of thrillers though I don’t necessarily like every movie that is considered a thriller. There are a lot of thrillers that turn out be incredibly mediocre. When I first saw the trailer for The Gift I thought it looked pretty mediocre. After seeing it though I’m glad to report that I was wrong by quite a bit.
The Gift is about a couple in their 30s named Simon (Jason Bateman) and Robyn (Rebecca Hall) who move to California from Chicago near where Simon grew up. Simon has just started a new job at a security firm and Robyn works as a freelance designer consultant from home after traumatically having a miscarriage. Things seems to be going great after buying a beautiful home and getting settled in, but unfortunately Simon runs into a guy he use to know in high school named Gordon (Joel Edgerton). Gordon seems to be nice enough at first although eventually he starts having boundary issues dropping by Simon and Robyn’s house while Simon is at work and leaving gifts for them while they aren’t home. Simon eventually tells Robyn that the kids in high school use to call Gordon “Gordo the weirdo” and that he was strange. As things start to escalate Simon feels it is time to end this forced relationship with Gordon.
There have been a few thrillers that have come out in the last few years and none of them really stand out all that much. The only one that does stand out was a movie called The Call (2013) starring Halle Berry. Unfortunatly this movie stands out to me because I felt it was awful. Watching the trailer for The Gift started making me think that we might have another mediocre movie like The Call. The interesting thing though is that I started hearing that this movie was getting really good reviews which really surprised me. I decided to look up more about it and found out that the movie is written and directed by Joel Edgerton. I immediately felt better about going to see this movie because I know that when an actor writes and directs a smaller indie movie they usually have a clear vision for what they want to put on screen bringing about the best aspects of what is known as the auteur theory.
I didn’t know much about Edgerton going into this movie, but I found out that he is kind of a character actor. I’ve remember seeing him in the movie Warrior (2011) which is probably the best mixed martial arts movie to be made at this point, but other than that and last year’s atrocious Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014) where he plays Ramses I’m not all that familiar with his work. I was really impressed with his work in this movie not only as an actor but also as a director and writer. The movie feels like a throwback to really good thrillers that came out in the ’90s such as Primal Fear (1996) or Breakdown (1997). I was also very impressed with Jason Bateman who I thought gave a great performance. Bateman is known more as a comedy guy and I hope people see this movie and realize he can do more than just comedy. If anyone wanted to know if Jason Bateman could do a thriller I could have recommended a little obscure TV movie called Moving Target (1988) that he starred in. Trust me it’s pretty decent if you want to give it a shot.
A lot of thrillers like to go over the top and get ridiculous and this movie had plenty of chances of doing that. Just when you might think it will disappoint it actually goes the logical route and delivers good’ol dark suspenseful fun. The only real problem I had with this movie is that I felt it was a little too long. It wasn’t over two hours or anything like that, but the movie just felt as if it was being drawn out a bit too slowly in the middle. I think the idea behind this was to develop the characters a bit more, but even if that is the case I still think they could have shaved ten or so minutes off the movie. Overall this movie is really good and it makes me hope we can see more smart thrillers like this in the future.
Dave’s Rating- ★★★★(4) out of ★★★★★(5)
