Once upon a time there was fictional, alternative Britain. In that country wise people actually listened to political radio shows at 11 pm instead of waiting for the last pint at the pub and gave attention to brave radio hosts that tried to defend them from Brexit promoting nazi knife-carrying gangs controlled from Russia. Yes, this is actually the premise of the story there.
This sci-fi thriller takes place in this bizarre reality, which is somewhat more crazy than London from Mortal Engines (2019). But never mind. Basically it is just a very cheap, very bizarre slasher that "tries to subvert our expectations" which would probably work in a very short format. But to expand 10 minute story to entire movie requires a lot of reality twisting. We must somehow accept that radio studios do have walls from bulletproof glass not smashable by chairs and hardly breakable by explosions, that there are no security guards in media buildings and no one actually cares that the security cameras have failed or even someone observes what is happening or actually listens to the show.
We absolutely need all of this to create a situation where the radio host is forced to admit in live radio he raped one girl and killed her boy. There are three attackers that are somewhat more capable than all the other people in entire radio station because they manage to both threaten the hostages and to control radio transmission at the very same time. Which is not easy and actually requires some tech knowledge that is unlikely to expect from three amateurs who do look like American rednecks..
I do not understand the details of the story because it is utterly insane and illogical: The radio moderator is somewhat capable to disarm two attackers with bare hands but everything somewhat changes again. Then they continue as normal, then there is some fight in the studio dungeon, then they fight again and then everything switches again. Everything repeats at least FIVE cycles. At that stage the story is not thrilling at all and it is basically a joke.
If there was one switch or two at most it might be actually a decent character based thriller. But the characters are not actually characters, there are not any backgrounds, there is no buildup, there are just surprise revelations and viewer is completely free to guess who tells the truth and who lies. But we live in a post Game of Thrones world, so no one needs to create believable characters, all we need is just to "subvert the expectations". There are leads at the start that lead literary to nowhere whereas we have no bloody idea why the journalist is so effective at murdering people. Was he ex military like Harry Brown? Or a ex cop like John McClane? We don't know and we do not need to know because it could set up the expectations somewhat.
This is the summit of British storytelling these days! I'm not joking. The entire setup of the story is completely crazy. There is no trace of any logic in it, in the end it is just a pure slasher fantasy. They repeatedly start and stop the live broadcast in between the fights - yet it somehow continues for THREE HOURS according to internal studio clock on the wall - scene in the studio starts at 22:20 and ends after 01. Not even that - they announce at the start there will be music show at the midnight that never happens - yet no one cares at all probably.
The moderator actually calls for police from the studio phone yet they are not able to identify the number of the studio or something. Yes, the police actually says they need to TRACE the call (obviously not needed after migration to digital switching). But nothing happens at all, it is probably a custom of british police to ignore emergency calls of something. They do actually blow up the studio at the end so I assume they thought this is sort of british variation of Die Hard (1988)!
The bloody rampage of the moderator (yes he did all the bad things) is so horrid so "they want him now everywhere, even to host Trump". Really. No joke. So he starts at the beginning of the story as progressive anti-Brexit good guy but after two hours of murderous mayhem where he is somewhat able prevent the broadcast of his admission to murder we kinda discover he is actually a*hole so he is fine with Big Corps and Trump now. He is probably nazi at that point as well but we will never know. But he wears black suit at the end so he probably is.
To say this story is stupid and bizarre is a huge understatement. I actually do hope the guys from "The Best of the Worst" would help us identify some traces of logic inside this. There are similar thrillers like Devil (2010) that take place in a very confined place but they are actually thrilling and even more realistic than this - because they present the characters, set up properly and disclose information in a manner that has a sense at the end.
This sci-fi thriller takes place in this bizarre reality, which is somewhat more crazy than London from Mortal Engines (2019). But never mind. Basically it is just a very cheap, very bizarre slasher that "tries to subvert our expectations" which would probably work in a very short format. But to expand 10 minute story to entire movie requires a lot of reality twisting. We must somehow accept that radio studios do have walls from bulletproof glass not smashable by chairs and hardly breakable by explosions, that there are no security guards in media buildings and no one actually cares that the security cameras have failed or even someone observes what is happening or actually listens to the show.
We absolutely need all of this to create a situation where the radio host is forced to admit in live radio he raped one girl and killed her boy. There are three attackers that are somewhat more capable than all the other people in entire radio station because they manage to both threaten the hostages and to control radio transmission at the very same time. Which is not easy and actually requires some tech knowledge that is unlikely to expect from three amateurs who do look like American rednecks..
I do not understand the details of the story because it is utterly insane and illogical: The radio moderator is somewhat capable to disarm two attackers with bare hands but everything somewhat changes again. Then they continue as normal, then there is some fight in the studio dungeon, then they fight again and then everything switches again. Everything repeats at least FIVE cycles. At that stage the story is not thrilling at all and it is basically a joke.
If there was one switch or two at most it might be actually a decent character based thriller. But the characters are not actually characters, there are not any backgrounds, there is no buildup, there are just surprise revelations and viewer is completely free to guess who tells the truth and who lies. But we live in a post Game of Thrones world, so no one needs to create believable characters, all we need is just to "subvert the expectations". There are leads at the start that lead literary to nowhere whereas we have no bloody idea why the journalist is so effective at murdering people. Was he ex military like Harry Brown? Or a ex cop like John McClane? We don't know and we do not need to know because it could set up the expectations somewhat.
This is the summit of British storytelling these days! I'm not joking. The entire setup of the story is completely crazy. There is no trace of any logic in it, in the end it is just a pure slasher fantasy. They repeatedly start and stop the live broadcast in between the fights - yet it somehow continues for THREE HOURS according to internal studio clock on the wall - scene in the studio starts at 22:20 and ends after 01. Not even that - they announce at the start there will be music show at the midnight that never happens - yet no one cares at all probably.
The moderator actually calls for police from the studio phone yet they are not able to identify the number of the studio or something. Yes, the police actually says they need to TRACE the call (obviously not needed after migration to digital switching). But nothing happens at all, it is probably a custom of british police to ignore emergency calls of something. They do actually blow up the studio at the end so I assume they thought this is sort of british variation of Die Hard (1988)!
The bloody rampage of the moderator (yes he did all the bad things) is so horrid so "they want him now everywhere, even to host Trump". Really. No joke. So he starts at the beginning of the story as progressive anti-Brexit good guy but after two hours of murderous mayhem where he is somewhat able prevent the broadcast of his admission to murder we kinda discover he is actually a*hole so he is fine with Big Corps and Trump now. He is probably nazi at that point as well but we will never know. But he wears black suit at the end so he probably is.
To say this story is stupid and bizarre is a huge understatement. I actually do hope the guys from "The Best of the Worst" would help us identify some traces of logic inside this. There are similar thrillers like Devil (2010) that take place in a very confined place but they are actually thrilling and even more realistic than this - because they present the characters, set up properly and disclose information in a manner that has a sense at the end.