GREEN ROOM Is Brutally Insane and a Must Watch - Sundance Review
First of all, if you haven't seen Jeremy Saulnier's Blue Ruin, watch it now. That was a great film, but his follow-up movie Green Room was even better! So if you've already seen Blue Ruin, you're going to love what the director has done with Green Room.
The story follows a hardcore punk rock band as the go to play a paying gig at a white supremacist club in Oregon. Things are pretty sketchy from the start, but when one of the band members bursts into a room he was told not to go into to grab his friend's phone...the shit hits the fan in the worst possible way.
The band finds themselves holed up in the green room where they have to fend off a small army of skinheads who are out to kill them to keep them quiet and use their deaths as a cover up for what was really going on. This skinhead group is led by none other than Patrick Stewart.
What this band is forced to endure is absolutely insane and violently brutal. The film is packed full of bloody visuals that are guaranteed to make you cringe. These skinheads aren't messing around, and they really go all out in trying to jack these poor punk rockers up, but what the skinheads don't realize is that these musicians are ready to fight back and survive any way that they can.
One of the things that I thought was great about this movie is that everyone is smart in their decision making. They actually do what a regular person might in this nightmarish situation, so there was a realism to it that I normally don't see in these kinds of film situations.
I also really liked the characters in the story. I thought they were all wonderfully developed, both the likable characters and the characters that you weren't supposed to like. And they were awesomely played by the actors cast in the roles. The film stars Anton Yelchin, Imogen Poots, Alia Shawkat, and Callum Turner, who were all absolutely fantastic. Then there is Patrick Stewart in a role unlike any role I've ever seen him in before. He was absolutely amazing, and it makes me wish he was utilized like this in more movies. Yeah, we get him in the Star Trek and X-Men franchises, but films like this really push him as an actor.
Green Room definitely isn't for everyone because of its ultra-violence and brutality, but if you're ok with this stuff you need to see this movie because it's one of the best films I've seen this year so far.