Sam Raimi returns to the director’s chair for the first time in years with SEND HELP that echoes the bloody insanity of the second and third Evil Dead films. It’s a nominally a thriller but the the blood-soaked laughs get in the way of.
The film is about the mousey genius Linda (Rachel McAdams) who is a whiz at finance. Her boss had promised her a VP position but after he dies, the boss’s son Bradley (Dylan O'Brien) puts his frat buddy in the slot. She is crushed. While her boss wants her gone, he needs her to crack a section of a merger, and he lies to her, so she’ll do it while on a flight to Asia. When the plane goes down in a storm Linda and Bradley are the only ones left…and he has to rely on her since he was injured in the crash.
What follows is a black comedy battle of wills as each tries to take the upper hand. I laughed a great deal. Some of the icky turns had the audience of media people reacting loudly and talking to no one in particular. It’s a goofy cartoon version of the Survivor TV show.
If you like that sort of thing, go- just be prepared for gore and blood.
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And at this point I am going to say I have a couple of things to say, however because Disney/Fox asked that I not spoil anything I am taking a break here and saying that if you want to know more of my thoughts keep reading, knowing that I may spoil things by i,plication rather than via details.
One last warning…..
Okay Now on to a couple of things that bothered me about the film. These made me like the film not love it.
My first problem is that as good as McAdams is, her mousey Linda would not have been on the floor of a company as high pressure and Wall Street like as the one in the film. They would have put her somewhere else where her lack of social skills wouldn’t bother anyone. It’s a fine portrait but it is out of place with everyone around her. It's almost as if one dropped some cartoon character into a live action film. But then again, the film is full of moments and turns that make no sense but are there either to extend the story or more likely get a big laugh. I stopped trying to figure out what was going to happen since there is a point about halfway in where the turns were there just to add run time.
This ties into another problem which is that the mix of realism and over the top comedy doesn’t always mesh. Sure, the comedy doesn’t sink it but things like McAdams doing the faces of Ash from Evil Dead cuts the tension. There is no suspense, no chills, because Raimi undercuts it by always- truly always- going for a laugh. You scream because the damage is gross, not because of fear. This is live action Tom and Jerry but with blood and severed limbs.
The last problem, and it was the one thing that made me step away from loving the film, and that was the realization that McAdams is just as bad, if not worse than her boss. She is a truly horrible human being, though it takes a while for us to fully realize it despite ealy clues. We should know she’s as bad as her boss when she reacts to losing the position, but it’s not until some things quietly transpire later in the film when we realize she is really a bad person. The problem is that once we see her as a bad person you are left with no one to root for because you don’t like anyone on screen. I wanted them both to die… which is not the way we should feel about characters
Then again the film is funny in a cartoony way with a couple of great turns of plot.
It is worth seeing if you can accept this as a mean live action cartoon.
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