Film Talk: Dating drama and app terror with Drop

Rami ‘Mercury’ Malek is a face that many of us would first have come to know during his time as Mr Robot. Yet since his Academy award-winning turn as legendary Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, said face has been everywhere.

Following his catapult to international fame with Bohemian Rhapsody, Malek has smashed it as a Bond baddie and even had a turn in award-scooping powerhouse, Oppenheimer.

This week he is back with his leading man pants on for a bit of vigilante spy fun in The Amateur.

Directed by James Hawes, this remake is also wheeling out Lawrence ‘Morpheus’ Fishburne to do what he does best with a delicious bit of enigmatic brooding.

While Malek is bringing the young(ish) Oscar blood to the party this week, the mantle of elder statesman falls on a man who needs no introduction.

Star of The English Patient, Conclave and the man who put the slither into Slytherin, Ralph Fiennes is here to put the classic into a very classic tale.

Directed by Uberto Pasolini, The Return puts Fiennes into the shoes of Homeric hero Odysseus, in a retelling of Ancient Greek epic, The Odyssey. With French actress Juliette Binoche filling the role of  suitor-plagued spouse Penelope, this one will tug at the interest of the literati and all those who want to see Fiennes bring his majesty to a new regal role.

At the top of our list this week however is a dating drama that would rival even the romantic rollercoaster of Fiennes’ and Binoche’s king and queen of Ithaca.

Starring Meghann Fahy and Brandon Sklenar, Drop tells the terrifying tale of a woman in a race against time to save her son after being terrorized via an app.

Directed by Christopher Landon, though this one is sure to bring crowds to the flicks this weekend, it just might keep them away from restaurants. Let’s take a look...

DROP (UK 15/ROI 15A, 95 mins) ****

Released: April 11 (UK & Ireland)

Sometimes, enough is enough. Happy Death Day director Christopher Landon’s high-stakes thriller does just enough with its simple and ingenious premise and that’s more than enough to hold our attention in a vice-like grip for 95 delicious, nerve-jangling minutes.

Set predominantly inside an impeccably designed fine dining restaurant called Palate with breathtaking views of the Chicago skyline at night, Drop orchestrates a deadly game of cat and mouse between an emotionally scarred single mother and an unseen aggressor during a trepidatious first romantic date.

Screenwriters Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach are ruthlessly efficient with their dramatic set-up, serving just enough back story and heart-tugging cuteness to have us rooting for Meghann Fahy’s heroine as she plays a hi-tech battle of wits with a merciless adversary, who can access the restaurant’s security cameras and sees and hears her every movement and word.

The whodunnit element of Landon’s picture is deeply satisfying.

Suspicion shifts between supporting characters to cast everyone in a distrustful light. Artful misdirection and bluffs build to a frenetic and bloodthirsty finale that doles out violence first to women and a cherubic child.

Drop practises equality with bullets and fists.

Fahy delivers a compelling and emotionally engaging lead performance and she generates palpable on-screen sparks with co-star Brandon Sklenar, last seen in It Ends With Us. Single mother Violet (Fahy) has slowly pieced her life together after the death of her abusive partner (Michael Shea) from a fatal gunshot wound.

After three months of exchanging messages with press photographer Henry (Sklenar), Violet agrees to go on a first date at a swanky high-rise restaurant while younger sister Jen (Violett Beane) babysits her son Toby (Jacob Robinson).

During the meal, Violet receives a series of strange messages on the DigiDrop app, which requires the unknown sender to be no more than 50 feet away.

One communication reveals a masked man with a gun at her home, who will murder Jen and Toby unless the single mother does exactly as instructed.

Unable to seek help from Henry or anyone in the restaurant, Violet races against the clock to deduce her tormentor from possible suspects including a bartender (Gabrielle Ryan), the restaurant’s hostess (Sarah McCormack), an effusive waiter (Jeffery Self), the sleazy pianist (Ed Weeks), a bumbling blind dater (Reed Diamond) and a lone diner (Travis Nelson), who claims to be waiting for his sister.

Drop delivers on its promise with confidence and style, nimbly dodging a couple of plot holes in the moment that only become glaring in hindsight.

The script sticks largely to its sadistic logic and milks fat droplets of tension from Violet’s skin-crawling discomfort.

Action-oriented flourishes in the closing act exert the greatest strain on credibility but by that point, we’re sufficiently invested to go with the crazy flow.

THE AMATEUR (UK 12A/ROI 12A, 123 mins) ***

Released: April 11 (UK & Ireland)

Grief warps a mild-mannered widower into a hardened assassin in a slow-burning espionage thriller directed by James Hawes, based on Robert Littrell’s 1981 novel which has already been filmed with John Savage in the title role.

This glossy new iteration of The Amateur written by Ken Nolan and Gary Spinelli trades the Cold War setting of the original for the drone warfare and hi-tech surveillance of the modern era, and casts Oscar winner Rami Malek as the brilliant cryptographer who wreaks havoc in the name of love lost.

Many of the well-executed action sequences are spoilt, annoyingly, in the trailer, so there will be few surprises if you have already sifted through the two-minute promo for Hawes’ picture.

The central character’s murky morality becomes increasingly unpalatable when innocent bystanders risk becoming collateral damage.

Malek’s nuanced performance ramps up the social awkwardness.

Coupled with his physical slightness compared to a traditional action hero, it’s relatable when one CIA superior taunts him by suggesting a 90-year-old nun could beat him in an arm-wresting match.

Alas, Hawes does not treat us to some sinew-straining muscle flexing in a wimple.

Instead, he sets pacing to pedestrian as the globe-trotting plot blesses Malek’s vengeful spouse with excessive good fortune to single-handedly bring down a hardened criminal network without a big sleep in a hospital bed or on a mortuary slab.

I guess that’s what they mean by beginner’s luck.

Charles Heller (Malek) works in the CIA’s decryption and analysis department in Langley, and reports to deputy director Alex Moore (Holt McCallany).

One of Charles’s contacts (Caitriona Balfe) provides damning evidence of wrongdoing within the hallowed halls of the CIA. Soon after, his wife Sarah (Rachel Brosnahan) is killed in a terrorist outrage in London.

Tapping into security cameras protecting the English capital, Charles uses facial recognition software to identify Sarah’s killers led by Sean Schiller (Michael Stuhlbarg).

Director Moore is reluctant to act, so Charles takes matters into his own hands.

He defies CIA protocols to gain mission-specific training under veteran operative Robert Henderson (Laurence Fishburne) so can murder Schiller and his associates.

“You can’t do what I do no matter how much I train you. You’re just not a killer,” Henderson warns his protege.

Charles’s revenge mission risks an international incident and newly-installed CIA director Samantha O’Brien (Julianne Nicholson) is compelled to act.

The Amateur recounts a simple tear-stained storyline as a series of stakeouts, chases and explosive final reckonings which lack the urgency that would surely befit a man on the run from the CIA.

Malek keeps us at arm’s length from his would-be soldier, so it’s difficult to be wholeheartedly invested in his daredevil odyssey, or care if he makes it to the end credits with air in his lungs.

Hawes’s film never comes close to being out of breath.

THE KING OF KINGS (UK PG/ROI PG, 104 mins) ***

Released: April 11 (UK & Ireland)

Charles Dickens (voiced by Kenneth Branagh) recounts the story of Jesus Christ (Oscar Isaac) to his young son in an animated drama directed by Jang Seong-ho, which has been timed for release ahead of the Easter holiday.

At the behest of his wife Catherine (Uma Thurman), Dickens shares his faith with his boy Walter (Roman Griffin Davis) in terms the youngster should understand. The author delves into stories from the Bible, weaving together characters such as King Herod (Mark Hamill), Pontius Pilate (Pierce Brosnan) and High Priest Caiaphas (Sir Ben Kingsley). Through these carefully crafted words, Walter better understands his father’s belief system.

THE RETURN (UK 15/ROI 15A, 116 mins) ***

Released: April 11 (UK & Ireland, selected cinemas)

The English Patient stars Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche reunite to headline a historical drama directed by Uberto Pasolini, based on Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey.

While her husband Odysseus (Fiennes) is far from home leading troops in the Trojan War, Queen Penelope (Juliette Binoche) guards the throne.

Covetous enemies wish to usurp the King in his war-mongering absence.