Veronica (Abigail Breslin) is new in town and local boys
Jameson (Alexander Ludwig), Shane (Cameron Bright), Daniel (Logan Huffman) and
Nelson (Reece Thomspon) have taken a shine to her. So much so that they’ve
invited her to a secret place in the woods where the young men, always dressed
impeccably in tuxedos, have their own form of recreation. The kind that
involves killing young women like Veronica. Little do they know, however, that
Veronica has a dark and bloody secret of her own: She’s been training with her
handler William (Wes Bentley). These boys are her first solo mission and her
final test before becoming a full-fledged killer. Let the games begin.
Now, you may think that the above paragraph essentially gave
away the movie. However, the movie itself just flat out gives you the entire
plot in just under five minutes of screentime. In fact, the pace of the story
seems almost breakneck, jumping from scene to scene with barely time to learn
about the characters. The runtime at about ninety minutes feels very light and
tends not to waste time.
“Final Girl” is a 2015 action thriller with elements of
psychological horror spliced in. It also has elements of humanity in several
scenes, especially between Abigail Breslin and Wes Bentley. What little we know
of Veronica and William’s relationship is as sweet as it is unsettling,
especially when the subject of sex is brought up.
In terms of cinematography, the camera work is terrific as
well as the color design. The colors pop out under highly contrasted lighting
and the use of shadows give it a very noir-ish feel to the film. Of course
there being spotlights in the woods keeps everything eerily lit during each
encounter with the tuxedoed killers. Everyone in the film looks stylized and
right out of a pulp novel. One of the guys has an affinity for swing music and
moves like a manic James Dean.
Abigail Breslin put on a very good performance as the
trepidatious but strong-willed Veronica. At the beginning of the film we see
her speaking with William, having lost her family and being taken in to train.
Twelve years later and we see a confident young woman who is ready for the test.
The performances of the tuxedo-wearing killers were pretty decent as well,
especially during hallucination sequences where each of their characters were
explored briefly.
With everything that is enjoyable in the film, I find that
there are many aspects that are sorely lacking. Now, we probably don’t need to
know everything about what kind of organization William and Veronica work for,
but it might’ve been interesting to find out. Why were these particular young
men chosen for her test? It’s implied that William’s job entails killing bad
guys through a line of dialogue but other than that, I don’t see a reason for
them to go after these particular murderous assholes other than the fact that
they are murderous assholes. There seems to be a bit of a disconnect between
this world and something akin to either a horror film or a realistic drama. We
also don’t seem to get a real sense of the killers’ personalities until the
climax rolls around.
Another problem for me is that I felt like we were being
dropped in the middle of a story, rather than the beginning. While it
progresses more or less linearly, the movie seems to want to focus on the part
we came to see and the movie wanted to showcase; the climax. Here is when the
movie finally stops to build tension and suspense.
(Spoilers in the next paragraph)
However, seeing as how well trained Abigail Breslin’s
character is, we realize the most glaring flaw in this film: these guys never
stood a chance. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we should’ve had them
kill the heroine or even be significantly more capable than her because we find
that William is never too far from Veronica when he shows up at the end.
Perhaps had the boys done their usual killing as the opening scene and then we
see Jameson pick up Veronica, leading to the boys trying to kill her, only to
find that she is an assassin who’s trained to take them all out. If they had
switched the scenes around, I think it could’ve been a much better movie than
it is.
I’m giving it a 2 out of 5. The premise is great, the visual
style is strikingly evocative and Abigail Breslin is game as fuck, but the
plot’s overall lack of suspense and tension takes the teeth out of this movie’s
bite.
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