Black Site – Movie Review
93 Minutes, Rated R
Written by John Collee
Directed by Sophia Banks
**NOTE: I have updated this post with audio (and the video is available on YouTube, SUBSCRIBE NOW!), which also includes a look at Vendetta featuring Bruce Willis, also from RedBox. Check it out.**
Synopsis:
A group of officers based in a labyrinthine top-secret must fight for their lives against Hatchet, a brilliant and infamous high-value detainee. When he escapes, his mysterious and deadly agenda has far-reaching and dire consequences.
I’ll try to be nice here, because frankly, it’s hard to take action movies too seriously, as they generally lend themselves to the ridiculous to begin with, and just as generally find themselves falling into one of three categories:
- Terrible (the majority)
- Unabashedly formulaic, but entertaining (enough to keep the genre alive)
- Exceptional (this is an exceedingly rare phenomena)
Now, you’re probably thinking right now, that I’m going to tell you Black Site falls squarely into the first category.
Well, you’d be wrong there. Sort of.
There are also films, from any genre (not just action movies), with something non-quantifiable that somehow overcome shortcomings of script, or performance, or effects, and allows the concept of the film, its core, to override those other shortcomings.
And now you think I’m going to tell you Black Site does that, lifting it from that dreaded first category.
Well, you’d be wrong… again… sort of.
Fine, I’ll stop equivocating and get to the point.
To expound on the synopsis above, the titular Black Site is located in an “undisclosed location” in the Middle East, and while Israel is not one of the 5 countries who share it, they have a presence and manage(?) the site…
As one would expect, that’s a bit vague.
Our title character, Abby Trent, is a widow and American intelligence officer who lost her husband in an attack masterminded by “Hatchet,” the anonymous terrorist bogeyman. She volunteers to spend a year at the site in order to crunch all the raw intel and figure out the attack that destroyed the hotel where her husband died.
Pretty predictable, right? Vengeance seeking agent tracking the target of their rage.
But at least we fridged the husband instead of the wife in this one.
After interrogating a man who knows who Hatchet is, then sending a working theory about the attack back to HQ, Special Ops miraculously apprehends Hatchet and immediately brings him to Abby’s facility, where it is made clear that he is going to be killed before she can question him and get the answers she wants.
But, as must happen, Hatchet is deadlier than they thought, and he escapes and starts killing everyone in the facility, which has gone into Lockdown and will be destroyed in one hour if they can’t communicate with HQ and confirm they are once again secure.
A game of cat-and-mouse ensues, with Abby always one step behind Hatchet, who has a specific target in mind, which is why he allowed himself to be captured in the first place.
Now, getting back to my earlier points: Black Site is NOT exceptional (again, that’s rare). It IS, in fact, formulaic in its construction and execution, BUT…
…but, it does also fall under the second, more ephemeral condition I mentioned, in that it has something…
…and that something is a well-reasoned (but not well-presented) idea that governments and intelligence groups will often do terrible-horrible-no good things in order to find (create?) their enemies or maintain their power/position.
The film, overall, is shot well, with a suitably claustrophobic feeling inside the base, leaning into the more horrific aspects of being trapped with someone who can kill without any hesitation.
Now, there is some terrible CGI compositing near the end of the film that’s hard to overlook, and Michelle Monaghan isn’t necessarily the first person I would have cast in a kick-ass action movie, but she does spend a great deal of time talking intelligence, and those parts work, despite any script shortcomings.
Speaking of, this is one of the few full-length writing credits for John Collee, as far as I can tell, and he draws on many genre tropes and is influenced by other, more successful, action films gone by.
It’s also the feature directorial debut for Sophia Banks, and I’ll say she does okay, given what she has to work with as a whole. I’m not convinced that action is necessarily her niche, though I’d be interest in seeing her direct a more thriller-based effort…but I don’t green-light movies, so who am I to say?
In the end, Black Site is a film that Redbox, not a major studio like Sony, Warner Brothers, etc., greenlit, and that’s clear in the end result. But it’s not a terrible way to spend an hour and a half, so check it out if you want to see some decent action and the underrated Jason Clarke chewing the scenery and taking people out… hard.
Black Site is now playing in select theaters, On Demand, and in Redbox kiosks, and stars Michelle Monaghan, Jason Clarke, Jai Courtney, Uli Latukefu, Pallavi Sharda, Phoenix Raie, Lucy Barrett, Todd Lasance, Pacharo Mzembe, Rayssal Bazzi, and Simon Elrahi.
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