“Nazis, I hate these guys.” – Henry Jones, Jr.
Written/Directed by: Jeremy Saulnier
Cast: Anton Yelchin, Imogen Poots, Macon Blair, Sir Patrick Stewart
Swift shot: Patrick Stewart is the main draw for audiences, but the real treat is seeing Imogen Poots and Anton Yelchin back on screen. Haven’t seen them together since they squared off against a certain douchey vampire. This time they have to survive everyone’s favorite hate group to hate, neo-Nazis. Director Jeremy Saulnier does a noteworthy job of making all of the characters compelling figures, yes, including the Nazis. He even manages to make the audience feel for vicious fighting dogs that are literally the murder weapon a few times.
Struggling, scrappy punk rock band, the “Ain’t Rights” are about to call their Oregon tour a total failure, but their concert promoter promises them one last gig that will at least pay for their gas back to Virginia. Thing is, they have to play for some Nazis . . . some “far left” Nazis.
Tiger (Callum Turner) is the lead vocalist, and that means he basically just screeches into a mic. There’s the tough drummer Reece (Joe Cole), with Sam (Alia Shawkat) on the bass, and lead guitar is our lead, Pat (Yelchin). They are not exactly the clean-cut heroes American audiences usually root for, but you do grow to like them and hope they don’t die.
Full disclosure, punk has never been my thing, nor has being a militant skinhead. So a lot of the dialog was basically lost on me, but I got the gist of what I needed. And I will leave the authenticity of said dialog to actual fans of those groups. But it was pretty clear that they did their homework on how these people might actually speak and operate.
The Nazis are helmed by Darcy Banker (Stewart) who owns the venue, a shitty house in the middle of nowhere Oregon. We don’t see Darcy right away, in fact, we don’t see much of him in this film . . . but I know that’s by design. I agree with that, like how you don’t show your monster constantly in a horror. It dilutes the terror. The direct underling to Darcy is Gabe (Blair) who has a certain passive apathy to his character that really made me wonder if he’d ever fit in with skinheads. They aren’t a mellow bunch. Gabe has a difficult problem to deal with, as his headliner band, Cowcatcher has just committed a major felony in the concert house and the “Ain’t Rights” witness it . . . in the green room. And the green room is where they’ll stay until things get resolved.
From there it turns into a siege film with only one door where a brutal game of dog and punk is joined. The Nazis quickly decide what they need to do with these kids is to dispose of them in a way that will look like they got what was coming to them. The kids are way out of their league with these ghouls, but not every “red lace” is a hardened killer. I liked that twist, where Saulnier showed the limited humanity of the bad guys in a way that made them more sinister. Perhaps that was what he was going for with Gabe, but it didn’t translate well. His character becomes a bit hard to swallow . . . unlike some of the others, I might impishly add for folks who have seen the film.
With painfully realistic effects where you will be wincing in pain with many of the characters throughout, Green Room will leave your psyche scarred. Will it linger with you though? That’s for you to find out. If nothing else, you will find it keeps your attention as you ponder what you might do in each act. It’s easy to talk tough, but when a giant Nazi is standing in front of you, unarmed and basically makes you realize you are powerless to stop him, it’s hard to say what you’d do in their situation. Everyone wants to play a hero, but no one wants to play war . . . for real.
Check this one out if you love siege flicks with a steady crescendo of cluster-fuckery on both sides of the green room door.
