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FILM REVIEW: Green Room

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GREEN Room hit UK cinemas last Friday (May 13). Quays News entertainment reporter Morgan Robinson has been to see it…

Is brutal violence your thing? Yes, then this one’s definitely for you. If you’ve not got the stomach for gore, dog attacks and stabbings, it’s probably best for you to give this one a miss. There’s no denying that Green Room is a great film though. It’s not an easy watch due to its horrific nature but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it.

There’s something incredibly interesting about Green Room. It takes you to a very dark place and leaves you there, chilled to the core. It may not be your typical scary movie with monsters, slasher killers or haunted houses but what it does is showcase a very real horror and it is that gritty realism that is the most disturbing thing about it.

Another interesting thing about it is the casting of Patrick Stewart, most famous for his roles in Star Trek and the X-Men films, as the Neo-Nazi leader and owner of the bar that the protagonists find themselves trapped in. With the rather gentle, light-hearted image that Stewart has, to see someone like him in this kind of role just adds to the chilling factor of the whole experience.

The film centres around a down on their luck punk band who, after playing a set at a white supremacist bar, witness a murder in the green room. They then come under threat from the bar’s owners, afraid they will call the police, and are thrust into a vicious fight for survival against the outrageously brutal and maniacally violent supremacists.

It may seem like a simple premise and in truth, it is, but it is the way it is presented by director Jeremy Saulnier that’s the real special element of this one. The film is shot beautifully (as Indies often are) and the acting, across the board, is solid. The filmmaking qualities of this film and the stylish nature of it do make up for the slight lack of story…although with a film like this, story really isn’t the main focus.

I will admit it took me a short while to figure out who everyone was and what exactly was going on but once it gets into it, it’s difficult to take your eyes off the screen. It did a great job of viscerally involving the audience to the point where I felt every brutal blow that the characters suffered through and for a film like this to do that, that makes it a success.

The cast, including Anton Yelchin, Imogen Poots and Joe Cole are all solid and it’s easy for the audience to feel sympathy for them, being in the horrific situation they’re in.

They work well in creating the success that this film was but it’s hard to look past the ‘big name’ Patrick Stewart giving such a different performance to usual who really steals the show. If nothing else, Green Room is worth seeing just for the interest of Stewart’s performance.

I do have a couple of nitpicks for the film, most obviously the slightly confusing beginning but also the sort-of unnecessarily quick resort to extreme violence by the skinheads. I did think that was just thrown in a bit too quickly but perhaps that’s just the nature of white supremacists. If so, I can accept that.

I highly recommend this one, but you definitely do need the stomach for it. Its brutal nature will put quite a lot of people off but if you can deal with everything like this, you won’t regret watching this one…a true indie gem.

Certification – 18

Run time – 1hr 35min

By Morgan Robinson
@ThePurpleDon_

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