Director: Jeremy Saulnier
Cast: Imogen Poots, Anton Yelchin, Alia Shawkat, Patrick Stewart, Joe Cole, Callum Turner
Running Time: 94 mins
Release Date: May 2016
GREEN ROOM is director JEREMY SAULNIER’S follow-up to the successful BLUE RUIN (2013). A punk band play at an unfamiliar bar in the middle of nowhere to a crowd of Neo-Nazi skinheads. After their performance, they stumble upon a murder in the green room and are forced to fight for survival.
The film has a similar tone to Blue Ruin; the plot seems somewhat realistic and doesn’t really go over-the-top at any point. Everything that happens in Green Room is within the realms of reality, which makes it slightly more frightening. The tone of the film overall is very straight with a few glimpses of humour and splashes of extreme violence.
The band are locked in the green room with a member of another band and her dead band mate. They quickly realise they will not be allowed to leave by the leaders of this white supremacy movement, and have to try to fight their way out of the room and get to safety. It’s a classic case of people simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time – but with horrifying consequences.
The great thing about Green Room is that, it would be very easy for someone to make a dumb action/thriller out of this initial premise; a group of redneck racists kill a group of kids because…well….they just want to because they are bad (I like to think it would have an equally dumb title like Neo-Nazis vs. Punk Rockers!). Green Room’s plot is detailed, makes sense, and is pretty intelligent. The leader of the movement (Patrick Stewart) thinks of a plan to murder the witnesses in specific ways so police and forensic science do not catch them and their racist organisation does not collapse.
The performances in Green Room are good, but Patrick Stewart in particular is in a role you will never have seen him in before. Playing the mastermind behind all of the white supremacists’ crimes, and has a really sinister and intimidating presence. Anton Yelchin and Imogen Poots are reunited once again (after both starring in the 2011 remake Fright Night). They both give good performances (although Anton Yelchin as a punk rocker is something that seems a bit odd) and the conversations between all of the band mates seem natural, and they are never bland. The few moments of humour in Green Room work very well and never really seem out of place.
Overall, Green Room is an excellent film. You might want to avoid it is you can’t handle a lot of violence though. If you have not seen Jeremy Saulnier’s previous film Blue Ruin, then you should watch that too! Green Room is a great follow-up and you should try to go see it in cinemas with a packed audience, as you will get an enjoyable experience from watching it in that situation.
Verdict
