Some Thrills | Some Fun | Too Many Questions
I love a good thriller, and through my years of watching movies I have come to understand what separates a good thriller from a mediocre one. I’m talking about hints. The two thriller/mystery/suspense films I think about when I need examples for good “hints” are The Sixth Sense [1999] and The Skeleton Key [2005]. We all watch thrillers for the thrills but also for those awesome twists that always come at the end. The Sixth Sense and The Skeleton Key have some of the best twists I have ever seen in movies, and the reason they are great is because there were several hints to the twist throughout the movie. A great writer/filmmaker knows how to hide a hint, keeping it out in the open but away from the audience’s attention. Devil has a mean, emotional twist in the end, but there are no hints throughout the film, making the twist feel like a cheap surprise.
Some of you may see my final verdict of this film and say, “You give this movie that? But you gave Straight Outta Compton [2015] an 8 out of 10.” These films are in two totally different genres, and Devil garnered a completely different opinion from me. I just wanted to get that out of the way before I continued.
Devil is fun to watch because it has you asking, “Which one is the Devil? Who is going to live? Who is going to die? What is going to happen?” These are great questions that the audience should be asking during a thriller. But in Devil, these questions are more garnered towards too little information being given than having opinions conflict each other. Throughout the entire movie, a recovering alcoholic Detective is trying to get five people out of a stuck elevator, but as time passes, one-by-one the five people start getting killed, creating a murder mystery. This doesn’t work when we know absolutely nothing about any of these characters. When the detective learns something, we learn something, which would be fine if it didn’t seem like all exposition and background information was being given just to keep the story moving along. Instead of a well-rounded, living world, the story seems to only exist because every twenty minutes someone arrives saying, “Sir, you better take a look at this. She’s not who we thought she was… (dun dun DUUUNNN).” It’s cheap, and when all the information is revealed like this, you start feeling like an idiot rather than a detective. I know you can argue that the “mysteries” of the passengers help the question, “Who is the Devil?” but it doesn’t hide the fact that it feels like lazy writing. If the each of the characters was better developed before Plot Point #2, then that same question would be more heart pounding, and the reveal in the end would be more satisfying.
What also cheapened the experience is how passive the characters felt throughout the entire film. I can understand the elevator passengers being passive, although it shouldn’t be an excuse, but when the detective (who I consider to be the protagonist of the film) is passive, it made me say, “Why watch a movie if everyone just waits for things to happen.” One of the great aspects of the film, the narration, says something along the lines of, “If you provoke him (The Devil); he will kill. He doesn’t like it when people get in his way.” This is great, but doesn’t excuse the fact that the events seem to “happen to the characters” rather than the characters “provoking the events to occur.” Sure, you could argue with me that all the actions of the characters are provoking the Devil, but in the end does that feel like an experience worth watching? Because the Devil is invisible, the film feels like an idea incorporated with a bunch of other cool ideas rather than a story.
Structurally, the plot is fine though. It was a bit slow at times, but the obstacles, even if they did seem passive and deus-ex-machina, were creative. All the plot points occurred at the correct percentages of this 80-minute film (kind of short for a thriller, but that doesn’t deduct its score), creating a solid telling from point A to point B. Narrations are frowned upon in films these days, but I can vouch that the narration in this film actually has a purpose and creates tension. The plot perfectly relates to the narrator’s story about the Devil’s games, and how no one ever survives them. After each plot point, or close to it, the narrator reveals another section of the story, foreshadowing terrible events to come. This is great and relates to the “hints” I was talking about earlier. Hints do not only need to be given to set up the big twist in the end, but they can also be used to create suspense and irony for the audience, which Devil does very well here.
Devil also has a great mix of characters and character types. From the recovering alcoholic detective to the grouchy old woman in the elevator, these characters bring life to the world, but the late exposition and reveal of their background information makes a lot of them forgettable. One of the better/only subplots of the film is the mystery of who killed the detective’s family. I consider it a D-story rather than a B or C, but the loss of his family reveals a lot about the detective and helps make him the best-developed character. How this subplot ends is kind of cheap and unrewarding. The plot eventually reveals that the devil trapped and killed these people in the elevator just to create a cover for taking the Tony character to Hell. The reason the Devil being so infatuated is because Tony has a dark secret that he needs to pay for: Tony is the drunk driver who killed the detective’s family. Wow, what a twist; it would be if everything I just said weren’t revealed in the LAST TEN MINUTES of the film without any hints. Tony finally apologizes for what he did, which makes the Devil spare his life. Great, Tony has seen the error of his ways and has become a better person. Awesome character arc… It would be if Tony’s character didn’t become evident in the LAST TEN MINUTES of the film. This is what happens when everything is a mystery and isn’t revealed until late into the story. Great twists and great characters go down the drain because they feel cheap and unsatisfying. Hints are the cure for that… hints; remember that. Watch any thriller and look for hints. If they are there, then you’ll have a much better experience.
The actors’ performances are great, considering what they had to work with. One actor didn’t stand out amongst the others, but that doesn’t mean the actors gave forgettable performances. They all were just on the same level of intensity and performance, creating some nice, smooth banter between characters. What brought the characters down for me was some of their dialogue. For instance, “Suck a butt,” and “I hope you’re not doing what it looks like you’re doing,” completely took me out of the element. The latter of the two quotes made me burst out laughing, and I had to pause the movie. The situation where that line comes about is when. The claustrophobic guard is trying to calm the grouchy lady down, but then she pulls the pepper spray and aims it at him. Then the guard proceeds to say the, “I hope you’re not doing…” line, which made me say, ”Obviously she’s threatening to spray you with pepper spray… so, why ask this question?” There are several more instances like this where a character has a line that mimics the actions taking place on screen. Adding this to the already “mysterious” nature of the characters, you create a bland boulder of characterization that doesn’t help the deus-ex-machina of the plot.
My final verdict for Devil is 6 out of 10. I liked it; I really did, but the critic/screenwriter in me started grabbing onto the fallacies and couldn’t get rid of them. With all the things I’ve said in this review, I still enjoyed wondering what was going to happen next and seeing a psychological thriller take place in an elevator. But, in the end, the thrills were just “okay,” there was only “some” fun, and the questions never ended.
The film was only 80 minutes long. If the film took an extra 20 minutes to include hints, backstory (early on), and more thrills, then this film would’ve been a better.
I do recommend watching this film if you’re in the mood for short thrill.
Thank you,
-Matt Brunhofer
