The “siege” movie has existed for a long, extended period of time. Modelled after the Howard Hawks’ western Rio Bravo and, more so, John Carpenter’s sophomore feature Assault on Precinct 13, Green Room is what you would have if you converted the punk genre from music to film. What will be a pleasure for genre fans and gore hounds, will please fans of general “good” movies as well. While director Jeremy Saulnier‘s follow-up to the critically acclaimed Blue Ruin may turn some people off due to the graphic nature of the film, the writer/director explores the fear of real people in a lose/lose situation. These people have made their way in; there’s no way all of them will make it out.
Green Room revolves around The Ain’t Rights, a struggling punk band living from show to show. Siphoning gasoline from cars when they can’t afford any, the group is desperate for a good show that pays over $50. After a show cancellation, one of the band members cousin’s tells them of an opportunity to make some money at a sketchy venue in the woods of the Pacific Northwest. At the venue, the band realizes they will be playing for a Neo-Nazi gang headed by Darcy Banker (Patrick Stewart, at his scariest). After playing a set including a cover of Dead Kennedys’ Nazi Punks Fuck Off, the bassist Pat (Anton Yelchin) goes back to the green room for his cell phone before coming across the dead body of one of the nazi’s girlfriends. Pat and the rest of the band (Alia Shawkat, Joe Cole, Callum Turner) are locked in the green room with Amber, (a badass Imogen Poots) a friend of the victims, and Nazi bouncer Big Justin (Eric Edelstein), until things are cleaned up accordingly.
Blue Ruin was a competently made film that closely resembled the ultra-violence and wit that is abundant in the Coen Brothers films, but that made it feel borrowed and uninteresting. The strengths of that film lied in the reality of the world that the characters inhabited and the believability of their motivations and actions. This carries over into the film, but adds even more sympathy to the band – some of the Nazis, as well. While the script may not be super innovative, all character motivations make sense and the direction helps you feel for every character that you’re meant to and it will leave you on the edge of your seat. Edge of your seat is the obvious thing to say when you talk about a great thriller, but nothing has left me as nervous as this film in the past few years.
Using a spare script, the events of the film satisfyingly reveal themselves and why the dead body happens to be in the room is explained well without just being a McGuffin. And that satisfying feeling extends to the cast as well. Each character within that room is legitimately frightened and scared as to what will happen to them. Yelchin uses his vulnerability quite well in this role. Unsure of himself, yet arrogant, Yelchin is able to insult a dozen men stronger than him outside the door, but cowers in fear at the actual sight of one of them. Shawkat, Cole, and Turner hold their own and don’t take you out of the situation with their acting. Each one scared, yet determined to get out alive. Poots is the real MVP of the film as a friend of the murder victim. Trapped in the same room as the band, Amber feels the pain of her friend’s death, but is more than ready to take out as many of the skinheads as she can. Without feeling like a clichéd badass girl in a movie, she’s given something to work with. Poots is able to pull off one sarcastic quip after the other and perfectly portrays the necessity of the character’s situation.
But let’s not forget the brilliance in the casting of Patrick Stewart. While his role is relatively small, (he is in it for around 10 minutes of the 95 minute runtime) any time he is on screen, there is an uneasy feeling that anything can happen. He’s not one to get into the nastiness of the situation himself, but he isn’t afraid to sick his skinhead brethren on them. In dark jackets and combat boots, his murderous skinheads are intimidating, to say the least. The skinheads aren’t treated as an unstoppable force, but as people that may have experienced something in their past that informs their behavior. Blue Ruin star, Macon Blair, shows up as one of the skinheads looking to earn his “red laces”, a sign of honor and loyalty among the Nazis. Mark Webber even has a small role as a skinhead torn in the middle of the grotesque situation. Their subplots wrap humanity around the villain’s point of view and lets us empathize – as much as we can with murderous skinheads, anyway.
Action is incredibly integral to the thrills of this movie connecting with the audience. Violence is used well and truly shows the consequences of any character’s missteps. There isn’t a punch pulled here and Green Room can feel incredibly grim because of it. While it features quips abound for Poots’ character, it has a deep sense of dread about what is around every corner and what is going to come next. It wouldn’t be difficult to describe this as a horror film, but Saulnier manages to have us cheering for our protagonists one minute, then gasping out loud at the next gruesome act that comes on screen. As various characters that we accompany in the beginning of the film are murdered, we feel for those people cause we were afraid with them. And every time we laugh at the insanity and brutality of the violence you almost feel bad, because you’re laughing at the brutal things that are happening to them. And while the ending may feel anti-climactic to some, it effectively portrays the situation as realistic and emotional, like it did in the first 80 minutes.
Jeremy Saulnier’s Green Room goes above and beyond what he did with Blue Ruin. This is essential viewing for fans of the horror/thriller genre, and it goes even further than what we expect from the genre. What could be seen as a tragedy (without feeling precious about itself), the film captures the threat of death as faster than we ever expect it. Characters meet grisly ends, there is no love interest, and there’s no hope that all of them will ever make it out alive. And in this case, that’s definitely for the best.