Netflix’s new original “Hold the Dark” features child-snatching wolves, wolf-hunters, an enraged father and the Alaskan wilderness.
Directed by Jeremy Saulnier, whose two previous movies “Blue Ruin” and “Green Room,” were excellent thrillers, “Hold the Dark” first seemed to be another one of Saulnier’s dark, twisted stories from which he has become known. Netflix seemed like it would be the perfect environment for him to utilize creative freedom and create a great movie.
Unfortunately, “Hold the Dark” fails to be anything close to entertaining, thought-provoking or well-written. It is massively underwhelming in every way and feels like it was created from a place of laziness.
Without going too deep into spoiler territory, the plot involves a “wolf expert” hired by a distressed mother whose son has supposedly been taken by wolves. While the hunt for the boy continues, the story becomes complicated when his disturbed, vengeance-seeking father returns home from the Iraq War.
The plot’s interesting premise could have made for an intense drama, with a lot of reworking. However, the writing is incredibly dull and makes for an experience that is boring overall.
Despite the excellent cast of Jeffrey Wright, Alexander Skarsgård and Riley Keough, the characters are largely flat and uninteresting. They all feel like “first drafts” — concepts that would have been great with better writers but never quite reach their full potential.
It doesn’t help that the dialogue is painful to listen to and incredibly cheesy. The filmmakers seemed to have thought they were being deep, but every line instead comes off as forced and cringeworthy. It’s all very pretentious and nothing like what real people would say.
Vernon Slone (Alexander Skarsgård), the grieving father, is probably the most interesting to watch, but he gets bogged down by some downright laughable scenes. His storyline also feels incomplete, and he’s another example of wasted potential despite a good performance.
His character is made out to be an intimidating, yet sympathetic murderer, but he doesn’t spend enough time on the screen to drive this point home.
Saulnier is known for from his previous films for his realistic violence and action, and while it makes his movies disturbing for sure, it also keeps viewers riveted and fearful for the safety of the characters. Yet, “Hold the Dark” is disappointing in that regard as well.
Aside from a genuinely shocking and sudden moment of violence near the end, there isn’t really anything memorable in the way of action. There’s simply no reason for the audience to be on the edge of their seats.
Even when a giant shootout occurs around halfway through the movie, the scene feels like it’s trying too hard to be shocking instead of being genuinely effective. That’s also one of many points in the movie where the characters make stupid decisions to move the plot along, and the ridiculousness makes it hard for viewers to buy into anything.
The movie is essentially a series of scenes and plot threads with no flow. The way this film ends may be the most annoying failure. It simply stops, with no satisfying resolution. In fact, the film almost seems like it was meant to be the first episode of a television show.
There are many movies that are slow the whole way through, but then the ending makes the whole experience worth it and proves the effective resolution to the slow buildup. This movie has the exact opposite effect.
After watching the movie, the persisting question was, “What was the point of that?” There was certainly the potential for a good movie in there somewhere, but everyone involved needed to put a lot more effort in to reach that point.
All the actors are serviceable, the scenes are well-shot and the music is fine. But the poor script and uneventful plot completely ruins the potential.
Netflix and Jeremy Saulnier stumbled hard with this one, but hopefully that it is not a trend that continues.
Just finished watching all the dark pitiful ending disappointed in Netflix