Wire Room, 2022.
Directed by Matt Eskandari.
Starring Kevin Dillon, Bruce Willis, Oliver Trevena, Texas Battle, Cameron Douglas, Shelby Cobb, MWW Michael Wilkerson, Faith Stowers, Amber Townsend, John D. Hickman, and Adam Huel Potter.
SYNOPSIS:
While on wire room duty, a federal agent listens in as the target is attacked in his home by a hit squad. Without burning the wire, he must protect the investigation and the target’s life from the confines of a room fifty miles away.
Opening with a graphic explaining the title, a wire room is an area where court-ordered electronic eavesdropping occurs. In other words, it’s the perfect setting for a modern-day Bruce Willis movie. That’s also not a knock on the veteran actor; recently, it has been confirmed he suffers from aphasia and is retiring, so giving him a character that either spouts dialogue while sitting on the couch or is offscreen is probably the best course of action. His performance in Wire Room is not good, there should be some reservations on whether or not directors like Matt Eskandari are exploiting him to star in these low-budget misfires to bring in some extra VOD purchases, but there’s also something weirdly inspiring about watching Bruce Willis still out there doing what he loves despite his condition.
Anyway, Bruce Willis is Homeland Security agent Shane Mueller, watching over the wiretapped residence of drug runner Eddie Flynn (Oliver Trevena). Shane and his partner Nour (Shelby Cobb) are also training a newbie in Kevin Dillon’s Justin Rosa, who is quickly shown the ropes and given the most straightforward instructions on how to proceed while they are away from their shift (you think one of them would stick around considering this is Justin’s first day, but there is no logic whatsoever here). Eddie does not engage in business calls until after midnight, meaning it should be a relatively easy shift where nothing happens.
It’s not long before Eddie, who is already increasingly paranoid that the government is watching him to the point where he doesn’t want to take his girlfriends anywhere, has his compound stormed by a group of unknown affiliation. Given how they violently take care of the girls (which unnecessarily happens multiple times on screen), the group appears to be a mercenary unit hell-bent on taking Eddie out.
The kicker to this situation is that the government needs Eddie alive to obtain a mental list of criminal associates and dirty law enforcement types. Instructed not to interfere with Eddie under any circumstances, Justin finds himself in the hot seat making phone calls to him (using his cell phone, to give you a more crystallized picture of how idiotic this protagonist is), where he quickly gains trust by relaying enemy positions to keep him alive. This group of 40 or 50 people doesn’t like sticking together; they want to try picking off Eddie one at a time.
From there, Wire Room meanders as Justin goes through the same motions while waiting for Shane and Nour to return and restore order to the situation (somehow, they are gone until the final 10 minutes of the movie, which we get a glimpse of in the beginning as a desperate promise that there will eventually be a shoot out inside the titular room). There are also embarrassingly underdeveloped attempts of Eddie getting into Justin’s psychological state of mind, particularly why someone overqualified chose this job, while also making a case that the federal agents watching him have been useless considering they have been trialing to nail him for over a year and still have nothing.
Kevin Dillon is not credible in the role, mostly resembling Johnny Drama (his fictional Hollywood actor character on Entourage) inside a terrible movie that would only be popular in that TV show’s universe. Not even the Irish rage from Oliver Trevena is enough to get the adrenaline pumping; there is simply no suspense watching him take directions from Justin on how to kill one mercenary at a time, covering the same ground over and over.
There’s also a predictable twist regarding an informant meant to place Justin in a moral dilemma further, but it’s such a weightless plot populated by empty characters that none of this means anything. But the real cinematic sin is that Wire Room takes 95% of its running time to deliver a passable action sequence, using the term passable loosely.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
