A Quiet Place (2018) review

For actor John Krasinski, fans primarily know him for his role on the American remake of The Office as Jim Halpert, the lovable everyman who constantly pranked Rainn Wilson’s Dwight Schrute and romanced Jenna Fischer’s Pam Beesly. But in recent years, one could argue that Krasinski has begun to transition away from his comedic roots. In 2016, he starred in Michael Bay’s war flick 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, and later this year, he’ll become the fifth actor to take on the role of Tom Clancy’s classic protagonist Jack Ryan in the upcoming titular TV series on Amazon, another project that he’s collaborating with Michael Bay on. And to top it all off, Krasinski has also begun to make a foray into directing. Prior to this year, he directed a pair of dramedies in the form of 2009’s Brief Interviews with Hideous Men and 2016’s The Hollars, both of which he also wrote and starred in. And this trend continues with his latest directorial outing, A Quiet Place, in which he co-stars with his real-life wife Emily Blunt and, yes, is once again collaborating with Michael Bay via the latter’s production company, Platinum Dunes. This time around, Krasinski tackles the horror genre with a film that’s based around the concept of silence as the main characters are forced to maintain such silence to survive against a collection of creatures who hunt through hearing. And thanks to the film’s highly effective treatment of this premise, along with an excellent sense of emotional poignancy, it’s quite easy to see why A Quiet Place is currently one of the most well-reviewed films of the year.

As the film begins, it’s established that the planet has been ravaged by a group of hostile extraterrestrial creatures. While these creatures are blind, they also have a heightened sense of hearing that allows them to easily hunt their prey if they end up making any loud noises. This, of course, forces any surviving humans to live their lives in complete silence to avoid being killed by them. This includes farmer Lee Abbott (John Krasinski), who lives this exact lifestyle alongside his wife Evelyn (Emily Blunt) and their two kids; their daughter Regan (Millicent Simmonds), who’s deaf, and their son Marcus (Noah Jupe). Communicating with each other via sign language, the family has managed to endure one full year of this alien threat while Lee continuously works to find any sort of weakness that the creatures might have. While all this is going on, Evelyn is about to have another baby and Regan struggles to cope with the guilt that she feels over a recent tragedy that the family has been through. But soon enough, it becomes apparent that the alien creatures are slowly but surely starting to come their way. Thus, Regan and Marcus find themselves having to ‘grow up’ a lot quicker than expected to help their parents fend off this terrifying threat before it gets them first.  

A Quiet Place very much lives up to its title, as the film is almost completely dialogue-free aside from the use of subtitled sign language and a few instances where louder bits of background noise allow the characters to speak normally. And while there is a backing score by Marco Beltrami, a lot of scenes rely solely on diegetic sound to help accentuate the importance of the characters’ silence. It also helps to establish a great sense of tension, making one dread what’s going to happen next whenever someone slips up and makes a loud noise. With that in mind, yes, this is a horror film that features one of the genre’s most infamous aspects, jump-scares, but in this instance, it fits the narrative as does the ‘Spielberg method’ of not fully showing the creatures at first. Because at its core, A Quiet Place is about the importance of family, a concept that is established right out the gate when the Abbott family suffers a devastating personal tragedy during the opening sequence and is maintained all throughout the film, culminating in an intensely emotional event during the finale. This immediately makes them a sympathetic group who are only strengthened further by the film’s excellent cast. Along with the excellent job that he does directing the film, John Krasinski perfectly encapsulates the role of a father who feverishly works to keep his family safe. The same goes for Emily Blunt, who Krasinski, of course, has excellent chemistry with. Ultimately, though, the real standouts of the film are their two kids, played by Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe. Jupe shines as the young son who finds himself forced to learn about the dangers of their current dilemma the hard way while Simmonds gets some of the best bits of character development in the entire film by way of how the previously mentioned family tragedy begins to create friction between her and her father.  

Now as I’ve made it clear several times in the past, I’m not a big fan of the horror genre. However, several recent horror films (specifically this, the film adaptation of It, and Get Out) have made me realize what it is about the genre that personally pulls me into it. For me, the best aspect of a horror film isn’t how memorable the main antagonist is or the creative ways in which characters are killed off. Simply put, if I don’t give a crap about the main characters in these horrifying situations that they end up in, then quite frankly it’s all for naught. And that’s what these three films managed to avoid via the strongly developed protagonists that are the Abbott family, the Losers’ Club, and Chris Washington, respectively. Oh sure, A Quiet Place does manage to succeed at creating a palpable amount of tension via its effective use of silence. This helps to make its proceedings even more intimidating due to the fearful anticipation that comes from the build-up to the inevitable alien-attracting noise. But at the end of the day, the reason why this film works as well as it does is thanks to its strong familial themes that are handled phenomenally by the lead quartet of John Krasinski, Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds, and Noah Jupe. Thus, just like It and Get Out, A Quiet Place is a prime example of a horror film that is so well-written, directed, and acted that it ultimately ends up being more than just ‘a horror film’ to become a highly satisfying watch that can strongly appeal to those who aren’t fans of the horror genre. I mean, who knows? If these three films weren’t enough proof of it, we might just be experiencing something of a ‘renaissance’ right now for this iconic film genre.

Rating: 5/5!

13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (2016) review

Michael Bay… talk about one of the most polarizing figures in the film industry amongst film fans on the internet. I’ve made it clear in the past that I am unapologetically a big fan of most of Bay’s films, even some of his more critically-reviled ones. But when it comes to the rest of the internet, obviously I’m in the extreme minority when it comes to being a fan of his. Because while his films have achieved much success at the box-office, with two of them (‘Transformers: Dark of the Moon’ and ‘Transformers: Age of Extinction’) grossing over $1 billion worldwide, almost all of them have been savaged by critics and a lot of film fans consider him to be one of the worst directors working today. I, however, disagree with that notion as there are far worse directors than him out there. And like him or not, you cannot deny that he’s got a style all his own and there’s arguably no one else out there who can shoot action sequences like he can. So what if I told you that his newest film, ‘13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi’, is one of the best films that he’s ever made (which I know many will argue isn’t saying much)? ‘13 Hours’ tells the true story of what happened on the night of September 11, 2012 when Islamic militants attacked the American diplomatic compound, and later the CIA annex building located just a mile away, in Benghazi, Libya. This incident has been a major topic of controversy in U.S. politics but the film mostly ignores the politics of the situation in favor of focusing on the six men stationed there who fought to protect those stationed at both locations, which was definitely the best route that this film could’ve gone.

In late 2012, CIA contractor and military veteran Jack Da Silva (John Krasinski) arrives in Benghazi, Libya, where he meets up with fellow CIA contractors/military vets Tyrone S. Woods (James Badge Dale), Kris ‘Tanto’ Paronto (Pablo Schreiber), Mark ‘Oz’ Geist (Max Martini), John ‘Tig’ Tiegen (Dominic Fumusa), and Dave ‘Boon’ Benton (David Denman), who together form the CIA’s Global Response Staff. At the time of Da Silva’s arrival, the country is in the midst of the aftermath of the 2011 Libyan Revolution but is still considered to be dangerous territory. That is very much proven true on the night of September 11, 2012, the eleven-year anniversary of 9/11, when a group of Islamic militants attack the American diplomatic compound where U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens (Matt Letscher) is currently located. Despite orders from their chief (David Costabile) to ‘stand down’ due to the CIA’s intended covert status in the area, Woods, Da Silva, and their fellow contractors head over to the compound in order to protect those stationed there from their assailants. Soon after this, the fighting moves over to the CIA annex as the team, as well as their fellow CIA associates, find themselves trapped against impossible odds without any real form of backup or air support.

As I noted earlier, there’s been quite a lot of controversy from a political perspective in regards to this incident. The State Department, and particularly then-Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, have been criticized for not providing additional security at the consulate in the time before the attack. But the interesting thing about this film, as well as the book that it is based on (13 Hours written by Mitchell Zuckoff and the surviving members of the Annex Security Team), is that just like ‘American Sniper’, it doesn’t really focus much on the political aspect of its story, which I feel is a good thing in this case. Instead, it makes the smart decision to focus more on the six men who embarked on the most extremely perilous mission of their lives in order to protect those stationed at both the Diplomatic Compound and the CIA Annex. All of this is done with, and I know this is going to really stun some people, a strong level of maturity from Michael Bay. What? Were you expecting anything less from a director who’s had a very strong relationship with the military as evident from the fact that they usually play a part in almost all of his films? I mean sure, at the end of the day this is still very much a Michael Bay film in terms of its overall style. Once the action kicks in, it doesn’t let go and Bay is still fairly excessive when it comes to his run-times, with this film clocking in at nearly two and a half hours long. But in this case Bay doesn’t let his style overtake the humanity of the story and amidst all of the action, he even takes a few instances in between the action sequences to let the audience take a breather, so it’s not like this is nothing but non-stop action for two-and-a-half hours.

All of this helps the film maintain focus on what really matters; those who went through of this. Of the film’s cast, which is mostly devoid of ‘A-listers’, the biggest name of the bunch is John Krasinski in the role of Jack Da Silva. It’s certainly a much different kind of role than what we’ve normally seen from the guy who’s best known for his role as Jim Halpert on the American version of ‘The Office’ but Krasinski handles the role perfectly, giving us a man committed to serving his country while also trying to be a family man back home but always finds himself coming back to places like Benghazi. Leading the way right alongside him is James Badge Dale as the leader of the GRS team, Tyrone S. Woods. Over the past few years, Dale has established himself as a superb character actor with standout supporting roles in films like ‘Iron Man 3’ and ‘The Walk’. Here he finally gets the chance to shine in a lead role and he very much does. A lot of it comes from the strong camaraderie between Dale, Krasinski, and the rest of the GRS squad (Schreiber, Fumusa, Denman, Martini, as well as Toby Stephens, who plays GRS officer Glen ‘Bub’ Doherty). You can definitely sense a strong sense of brotherhood amongst these men that carries throughout the entire film. Hell I’ll even admit that there was one moment in this film that legitimately made me tear up. Yes, I got a bit teary-eyed watching a Michael Bay film of all things.

‘13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi’ is a film that, at the very least, should prove to hardcore cinefiles that Michael Bay can make a mature, story-driven film that isn’t just explosions and CGI characters fighting each other. I mean sure, maybe this film doesn’t really have as much nuance compared to other war films but as far as Michael Bay’s films are concerned, this is easily one of his most subdued efforts when it comes to restraining his trademark style. And sure, the political aspect of this incident can be argued till the cows come home but I feel that the film made the wise decision to not get too much into the politics and instead keep its focus on the six men who were right in the middle of all of this and who put their lives on the line when the s*** hit the fan. I know that when this film was first announced and that Bay would be directing it, some people feared that this would be another case similar to Bay’s previous ‘historical war drama’, 2001’s ‘Pearl Harbor’. While that film did receive praise for Bay’s direction of the attack on the Harbor sequence, it was widely criticized for focusing more on fictional characters and a fictional romance than the real life people who were there when it happened. But that’s not the case here. Aside from what I can assume are only a few minor differences between what happened in reality and what happens on screen, this is an extremely respectful portrayal of what happened that night in Benghazi.

Rating: 5/5!