After much thought, I am reviving my film blog, Sneak Prevue, a look at classic and contemporary movies overlooked, underrated and underappreciated by many people – including some of the leading critics.
About a week ago, I caught smart little import from Britain
called “Calibre.” I first heard of the film from a recommendation author
Stephen King posted to his Twitter feed. And King was more than right about this
Netflix original film.
To be fair, Netflix original films have been hit-or-miss
with most being a miss.
While production values of many of the streaming service’s films
is on par with most theatrical films, the substance has been sporadic at best. After all this is a company that signed Adam
Sandler to a contract to produce several, painfully unfunny comedies.
Then again there is the hope that the next Martin Scorsese
movie, “The Irishman,” will be a huge hit for Netflix – which is footing the
budget for this gangster film starring Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci and Al Pacino. I
can’t wait.
But that is way down the road. Until then, carve out 101
minutes from your day to watch “Calibre” – a nail-biting thriller that plays as
a smart, heart-breaking morality tale.
The plot it simple enough: A Edinburg businessman takes his
longtime friend to a remote village in the Scottish Highlands for a hunting
trip. One accident places the friends in mortal danger that becomes
increasingly complicated as the story unfolds.
I won’t say anything else about the plot because watching it
unfold in a logical manner gives the makes it a haunting, frightening tale.
Forget the boogeyman, the mad slashers, the monsters in the dark. Real horror
is rooted in innocent people doing questionable acts.
Much of the credit goes to writer-director Matt Palmer who
gives the film an edginess found in the best of Hitchcock. Even though Palmer wastes
little time jumping head-first into the plot, he still finds a way to create
memorable, sympathetic characters.
Leads Jack Lowden and Martin McCann are perfect as best
friends who find themselves in the middle of a nightmare.
In some ways, “Calibre” reminded me of another brilliant
thriller, Sam Raimi’s “A Simple Plan.”
Raimi’s film was based on a best-selling novel by Scott
Smith. The film follows brothers who find a crashed plane filled with $4.4
million in cash buried in the snow in rural Montana; when they decide to keep
the cash, they fabricate a lie to cover themselves.
When their plan starts to unravel, they find themselves
concocting another lie to cover the initial one. They quickly begin a vicious, dangerous
cycle by telling lie after lie after lie as they finding themselves falling
deeper and deeper into a living nightmare.
As in “Calibre,.” Raimi, keeps the film a tight ship and the
audience on constant edge. Sadly, “A Simple Plan” features one of the last
roles by actor Bill Paxton who died almost 20 years later from a stroke at the
age of 61.
You can catch “Calibre” now on Netflix. “ A Simple Plan” is
available on DVD and Blu-ray and streaming now on Amazon Prime.
