Synopsis: A young African-American man visits his Caucasian girlfriend’s mysterious family estate.
“Run, muthafucka run, run!!” could have easily been the tag line for writer and director Jordan Peele’s 2017 sci-fi/horror box-office hit “Get Out”, a film that pays subtle homage to its audience and executes Pre-Romero Zombie and sci-fi 60’s and 70’s influence the likes of “The Puppet Masters”, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” and “The Twilight Zone”. “Get Out”, however employs just enough gore and socially relevant subject matter to have audiences and fans of all movie genres cheering in their seats.
British born actor, Daniel Kaluulya, plays “Chris”, a young black, budding photographer who lives in the city with his beautiful, white girlfriend “Rose”, played by Allison Williams. All is well in their blossoming 4-month relationship. It’s going so well that young Rose has already moved into Chris’s loft. Yep, everything in Chris’s life is peachy keen until the day Rose wishes to introduce Chris to her family, a task that Chris begrudgingly accepts despite his fear of not being accepted by Rose’s family because of the color of his skin. “Get Out”, really could not have been released at a better time by Blumhouse Productions and Jordan Peele.
The post inauguration of our current President has left our country with a lot of questions about our society and our culture. Racism and equality seem to be the hotbed of every conversation on social media as well as the evening news. “Get Out” refreshingly tackles these subjects with humor and insight to the thinking of young black men in America.
Blumhouse seems to have a lot of hits and misses. But their hits are massive with low risk/high reward films like “Paranormal Activity”, “Insidious” and now “Get Out”. With a $4.5 million dollar budget, “Get Out” has already eclipsed $123 million at the box office. And it’s easy to see why. It’s a damn good film. Anyone who has seen Peele’s show on Comedy Central can tell for themselves that he’s a comic book and horror nerd. Now we know Peele’s ability to craft a socially relevant script that creeps you out and keeps you guessing far surpasses any writing he’s done in the comedy world. That being said, this is not a perfect film by any stretch. And there were a few issues I had with it. For instance, the male and female leads are so often out acted by the supporting cast that I wonder if the casting choice of having inferior actors in the lead roles was done intentionally and that’s not a knock on Williams and Kaluuya. They were fine in their parts but the supporting cast was just far superior. Actor/comedian LilRel Howery who plays, “Rod”, Chris’s best friend and voice of reason gives a career breaking performance. His comic relief is priceless and his character’s decisions are what we’ve been screaming for black characters in horror movies to make for decades. “Don’t go into that dark alley!!!” Bradley Whtiford, Catherine Keener and Caleb Landry Jones play Rose’s dysfunctional family respectively and evoke creepiness to a “T”. My only wish is that they had more dialogue, but I digress.
As Chris inevitably meets Rose’s family and friends of Rose’s family, he learns that white people might be even stranger that he’d originally thought and finds himself in the middle of a diabolical family’s plot to put a new twist on slavery for the black men and women of our country. Ultimately, Chris finds himself in a fight for his life and must also come to the decision on whether or not he can trust the woman he loves or if he should have just listened to his friends in the first place. There is nothing extraordinary about the cinematography, pacing or direction of this film. All three elements are simply adequate. The real genius of “Get Out” is delving into the psychosis of a sinister group of people and imagining the lengths of treachery that line the human nervous system. By the end of the film no matter what your skin color or political agenda is, “Get Out” will have you on the edge of your seat with laughter, interest and sheer disgust into the possibilities of human abnormalities.
IMDB.com has a score of 8.3
