You'd probably like it more than not.
What I think works best is the frenetic style. From a brief surreal moment where the main character is oblivious to what's happening around her and then sees a man run down the subway steps on fire, she exits onto streets that are familiar but insane. It's unclear what direction the threat is coming from, who the good guys are, or why anything is happening. People are killed utterly senselessly and the pillars of her small home-neighborhood world are falling apart around her.
I have little clue, but it's what I sensed that it was what life must've suddenly become in Aleppo. And it put me in mind of how hatefully oblivious people were who rejected the very idea of refugees, saying they should go back and fight for their country. How do you stand and fight in a situation where one day is trips to the deli, swimming lessons, and a visit to your mom's endocrinologist, and the next day is absolutely insane, with a well financed army raining destruction on you from vantage points you can't even see? It's all done with handheld cameras running alongside the actors, with mostly practical effects, one character suddenly appearing, having an exchange with the principles, and then deleted by a sniper shot like they were never there, as the other characters just go on, because they have to. Every death is pointless, which makes it's point. Look for poetry elsewhere.
It's like the urban, gritty, existentialist Sidney Lumet street dramas of the seventies, with a broader chaotic war-film scope, more approaching Saving Private Ryan or something.
The problem is a search for a message in the script, beyond the tone of the direction. I have my doubts that this urban Red Dawn occupational army could get a toehold in Brooklyn, when New York is wired to the hilt to detect against hostile threats. You may set off a bomb, but digging in with an army is another thing. It's never quite clear how they arrived, either. Plus the film is loaded with an uneasy ambiguity about private ownership of assault weapons. Watch out, those guys loading up on weapons may be planning an insurgency, but hey, you'd better load up on weapons for the counter-insurgency. I'd be more inclined to hole up for a few days.
And in this search for meaning, the most stagey moments become the most eyerolling absurd. When a disturbed priest (in the basement of a church that sounds more Pentecostal than Catholic) goes into a batshit crazy monologue, you know the script isn't going to save the day. It briefly tries to make a point about strength through diversity, but abandons that thought mostly as too cute. But the story told with the cameras and tone and utter chaos can keep you glued nonetheless.
|