Defective, 2017.
Written and Directed by Reese Eveneshen.
Starring Collin Paradine, Raven Cousens, Ashley Armstrong, and Dennis Andres.
SYNOPSIS:
In the near future, the corporation S.E.A., has implemented North America’s first and only police state. Uniformed, anonymous Preservers of Peace investigate, judge, and sentence people for even the smallest of crimes. The punishment? Instant public execution. Rhett Murphy and his sister Jean must escape certain execution after witnessing the dark secrets of the nefarious corporation.
Science fiction presents a reality where anything with even the slightest chance of happening can thrive. Perhaps that’s why it’s also the most ripped-off genre in cinematic history: when auteurs like Asimov, Clarke, Le Guin (rest in peace ma’am), and Spielberg have explored the most popular avenues, why bother straining yourself trying to do something original when you can just combine past works and Frankenstein something decent? To quote Roger Ebert’s review of Predator “in today’s Hollywood, that’s creativity. Most movies are inspired by only one previous blockbuster.”
As I watched Reese Eveneshen’s Defective, I couldn’t help but spend the duration of the film trying to guess which prior works it was incorporating into its narrative, which doesn’t bode well for any filmmaker trying to create an immersive experience. In Eveneshen’s case, that experience is living in a future dystopia where security guards from the State Enforcement Agency (S.E.A.) roam the city’s streets and buildings. These guards, labeled the “Preservers of Peace,” are theoretically meant to do their namesake, and a statistic spouted by the S.E.A. corporation about decreased crime rates seemingly confirms it. But other scenes hint at a radical broken windows policy being initiated behind-the-scenes, one of which sparks the main characters’ journeys.
Those characters are brother and sister Rhett and Jean, who find themselves on the run after violating one of the core tenets of the society they live in. Having characters be a part of a prolonged chase is a typical dystopian trope seen in works like Logan’s Run, The Handmaid’s Tale, and the recent Star Wars: The Last Jedi. And it’s something that Eveneshen could have simply left as the basis for his action set pieces. But he makes the decision to expand upon this narrative driver by simultaneously tying it in with the slow revelation of the protagonists’ background.
While this is a valiant effort, it ultimately proves to be a poor choice due to it resulting in the pacing of Defective taking a hit for the various exposition dumps strewn through the movie. I do not use the adjective “slow” lightly: it literally takes minutes for basic information to come out telling us who these people are and how they came to be in their current situations.
I might have been able to overlook this problem had the action been entertaining enough to make each bout of heavy dialogue worth getting through, but even then there are issues starting with the sluggish hand-to-hand combat. The shootouts themselves are fine, but often the characters engage in close quarters brawls, and you can unfortunately tell it was choreographed by how leisurely everything plays out.
Those scenes were particularly painful for me to watch because I could see the amount of effort cinematographer Isaac Elliott-Fisher (who also helped with the costume design) put into making each individual shot beautiful. There was this idea propagated by Dredd producer and screenwriter Alex Garland about whether or not harsh brutal violence can have a beauty to it, and I can safely say that Defective, like Dredd before it, proves this notion. I wish the story and direction had lived up to this technical feat.
The acting is on point for the most part. Props have to be handed in particular to two of the actors: Colin Paradine (Rhett), who gives a believable portrayal of a man balancing shell shock from his past with a desire to protect his sister in the present, and Ashley Armstrong (Ora Green), who gives her S.E.A. spokeswoman character expanded depth from the few scenes devoted to it. Unfortunately, points have to be deducted from this department for the performances of Raven Cousens (Jean) and Dennes Andres (Pierce Felton), who too often feel like they are trying too hard to make their characters’ personalities feel authentic.
For all its attempts at action flare and high-stakes drama, the most interesting aspect of Defective remains the Preservers of Peace. There is something genuinely intriguing about these beings: are they soulless androids, or is there a living component to them? They all sound, move, and operate the same, yet feel pain and bleed red. Newscasts and posters, evidently inspired by RoboCop, help to naturally fill in the gaps of their backstory, and I appreciated Eveneshen for slowing down the scenes enough during the broadcasts to help viewers pay attention to them. Too often movies, such as the Oscar-nominated Logan, speed the pacing along while the revelatory audio plays in the background, preventing audiences from properly hearing what was just said.
But overall, Defective doesn’t offer enough fresh concepts or basic thrills to offset its already oversaturated genre. If you have any interest in watching it, I would recommend waiting till you can rent it on DVD.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ /Movie: ★ ★
Red Stewart
