HOLD THE LINE MOVIE MOVIE
These moments of catch-and-release tension, when the pack feeds, show the craft with which Saulnier can build a sequence that is absolutely flooring, and the aforementioned standoff is the centerpiece of the movie that he is unable to top. The viciousness of the picture will be off-putting to some, but along with the performances, it is the strongest aspect. And then Cheeon attempts to make good on it. The besieged man’s answer is to only tell the local sheriff that his pregnant wife is about to “get the phone call today” stating that he’s not coming home. One in particular involves a standoff between one of Vernon’s friends, a forgotten Native American named Cheeon (Julian Black Antelope), and the local law enforcement, who tries to talk him into working with the cops to find Vernon after the bodies start dropping. In this way, there are several incredibly visceral and genuinely stunning set-pieces in the film. The best I can reason is that it is that if humans are animals, then bullets have become our claws. There are several scenes of locals of varying walks of life revealing their capacity to kill can only be surpassed by their high-capacity rounds, and yet I do not think the film is making a political statement of any kind. It is not a spoiler to say Vernon comes home from the war, and when he discovers his son is dead, he goes on a bloodlust of his own that is only the tip of an iceberg that places order against chaos, and rationality against the kind of primal, bug-nuts gun craziness that can only occur in America. Genuinely, I cannot recall another movie where so many characters are unsuspectingly, and quite suddenly, shot in the face. And that uncomfortable gust comes in violent outbursts filled with the most senseless of savage carnage. Rather the movie blurs the line if for no other purpose than it can, and that it provides a great pretense for an exercise in mood setting.Īt a very deliberate and measured pace, that can at times be as patient as the very glaciers Russell and Vernon ultimately trek across, Hold the Dark is about putting a finer point on that cold rush that comes on the most sleepless nights.
Yet the film is not something so schlocky as The Grey, or any other picture about man vs. The strange upright creatures suffering from the human condition do irrational things time and again throughout Hold the Dark, and in the process they more often than not become more bloodthirsty than the furry pack Russell reluctantly agrees to hunt. Why take this letter at face value? Why agree to do something against your ethics and hunt the wolf? Why go to war? However, the purpose of why Russell travels to Alaska is only as important as its hints toward the inexplicability of human behavior. It is fair to say that there is much more to the picture than meets the eye in this synopsis, but to say more would be to give too much way.
Russell Core, an author and advocate for wolf preservation, is Medora’s only hope of tracking the beast down and having her revenge. Her husband Vernon (Alexander Skarsgård) has been away for a year or more in Iraq-the film, without drawing much attention to it, is set in the mid-2000s, but at times may as well be the 1800s if not prehistoric Europe-and now her son has been taken off by wolves. The letter hails from Medora Slone (Riley Keough), a grieving mother living in a dying village near Alaskan mountains. And that might be a surprise for some of the characters, as the movie starts with the storybook-esque setup of Jeffrey Wright’s Russell Core being summoned by a desperate plea to hunt a wolf. This is a picture about the lingering dread of the unknown, and wallowing in a time and place as remote as the Alaskan wilderness wherein the most dangerous animals are not the wolves who roam the landscape. With Hold the Dark, the Green Room and Blue Ruin auteur enters his first Netflix foray, where he displays enough cinematic charisma in every frame to again disprove the cynical notion that Netflix originals are not genuine experiences. It also returns to a root that attempts to chill to the bone but can leave you cold in other ways. For this new Jeremy Saulnier thriller is about returning to our roots, including as storytellers, as a species, and as creatures of this Earth. Opening on a man sitting on a plane headed for regions unknown, beckoned by an enigmatic and troubled note, the film foreshadows its very best and worst sensibilities. Hold the Dark begins like so many grim adventures of yore: with a journey to the end of the world.
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