To put it bluntly, once you get past the fact that there won’t be much human behavior in ‘Detained,’ the film that follows easily provides its own simple pleasures in the Goofy Escapism category. borrowing heavily from ‘The Usual Suspects’ including the obligatory dark figure somewhere in the room, ‘Detained’ has so many twists and turns that it is hard to be too harsh on one before the next one has had the chance to make you forget the previous one. Yes, it is a movie about dumb people, and It is laughably dumb in the most basic sense. It is however amusing in its stupidity as it confines them to one place where a bunch of idiots are said to be put in an unreasonable situation, roaming around until a large majority of them die.
Abbie Cornish, who has a fabulous role in Jane Campion’s ‘Bright Star’ but is underrated, plays the role of Rebecca Kamen, a woman who might have woken up in police custody or perhaps not. However, right from the first act of the film “Detained,” I know that there is a flaw with the narrative, although I was still conflicted whether that was bad directorial skill or an obvious plot twist. This crime drama film while at the surface level may look like a crime drama, within the first twenty minutes, viewers are served with several twists and several flash foward scenes telling us that the plot of the movie will be even more shocking. It is a bit of a spoiler, but I believe that this is safe as it occurs too early and is executed too well to suggest otherwise that Rebecca is not in the average police station: There are other, more sinister undertones.
As Rebecca slowly regains consciousness, she learns that she has been involved in a hit-and-run accident that may have killed a fellow cyclist – and one of the things that does seem strange is the forceful questioning of a woman who was so drunk she couldn’t even recall being in a car crash. The fact that she did or did not are, nevertheless, quite a few times you will have to check your common sense to enjoy this one. In the first place, she would like to know what other methods would there be to establish if she did or did not. Even before Rebecca gets the opportunity to pose such a question, she has been incarcerated with a female inmate (Josephine Lindegaard) and an older drug addict (Silas Weir Mitchell). As they tussle, a shot goes off, which results in Rebecca attempting to make the situation disappear with money. Just as Rebecca is about to bribe what she believes is her investigating officer, the lights go out and the audience gets a sense of what they are witnessing and it is nothing short of an elaborate scheme, the mastermind of which is one Avery (Laz Alonso of “The Boys”) who works for a notorious scourge known as Keyser Soze oh no, I mean Jovan.
So you get the idea.
Maybe I am biased, coming from an acting background, but I personally have a soft spot for the single setting thrillers, where characters are introduced, and they get put against each other, where something has to break. Such successful versions of this concept are highly dependent on the cast understanding the assignment and director and co-writer Felipe Mucci succeeded here. Alonso is enjoying himself in ways that I truly wish his Prime video hit would allow him to do more of, but the variety does is among the extended group of the ‘Ridiculous suspects’ including Moon Bloodgood as a strutting hard-boiled detective and a great Justin H. Min (‘After Yang’) as Rebecca’s so-called attorney. With low-budget films like ‘detained’, one often expects a sub-par cast, but this one is startlingly sharp, with a bunch of performers who clearly have a blast with their silly premise and are hoping you do too.
At the very end, one can hear a recording of a passing person in the distance saying “Not entirely clear on the motive either”. It made me laugh mein. Very much indeed, “Detained” wouldn’t This is, however, a major downside to the film because “Detained” has a lot of twists and turns and an altitude of possibilities whereby it is safe to conclude that there is, without a doubt, a more refined ver. It’s almost as if the macguffin of the film is the film itself when movies seem to be such endless possibilities. It’s not “The Usual Suspects,” but “The Usual Idiots”: amusing enough.
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