Overlord

Like a lot of thrillers, Overlord is much better in its setup than it is when it is giving us answers or a payoff to it all.  However, the setup here is so good and engrossing, it doesn't matter if the movie kind of flies off the rails in the last half hour or so.  This is a surprisingly effective mix of an old fashioned World War II B-Movie, and a body horror film.  Even if the climactic moments don't quite live up to the promise of most of the film, I still found myself much more involved here than the recent Halloween from a few weeks ago.

The movie wastes no time throwing us into the thick of battle as Allied ships are sailing Normandy while fighter planes hover overhead.  On board one of the planes is our hero, Private Boyce (Jovan Adepo), a soldier who was drafted only three months ago, and is already in the thick of combat.  The platoon on board the plane are to parachute into France, find a small village that has become a German stronghold, and destroy a communication tower so that the boats below can storm the beach.  The plane is savagely attacked by enemy fire, wiping out part of the team before the mission can even begin.  Alongside Boyce, the main survivors are a demolitions expert with a mysterious past (Wyatt Russell), and a Brooklyn-accented soldier (John Magaro).  The survivors manage to make it to the town, where they meet a woman named Chloe (Mathilde Ollivier), who hates the Germans occupying her village, and offers to hide them in her attic while they figure out what to do.

It is at this point that the movie starts to add a subtle supernatural horror bent.  Chloe claims that she is caring for her sick Aunt, whose violent coughing and gasping breaths can be heard from behind a barely cracked-open bedroom door.  When Boyce happens to catch a glimpse of what's inside the room, it does not appear human.  For reasons I will not reveal here, the men are almost discovered by some Nazi soldiers, and Boyce must make his way to the local church, which is serving as the German base in the town.  Inside the church, Boyce discovers a passageway underground that leads to a vast lab where a scientist and his cronies are experimenting on local villagers.  This entire sequence is easily the best in the film, and the less said about what Boyce discovers, the better.  From this point on, Overlord tows the line between a war drama, and a horror film about man tampering with human nature, and creating something unspeakable.

This is a movie that does such a good job of creating genuine tension and dread, both in its war scenarios and the secrets that Boyce discovers in that basement lab, that it's somewhat of a letdown that the last half hour or so turns into an over the top action cartoon, with non-stop fighting and explosions.  You want the movie to go back to the more unsettling and mysterious tone that it had been creating so beautifully for a majority of its running time.  Regardless, on the whole, what works here is so good, the movie is worth seeing.  Before everything goes off the rails, and before that completely inappropriate rap song that plays over the end credits, this is kind of an ingeniously crafted thriller.  From the very opening scene, showcasing an intense air battle, this is a movie that knows how to draw you in.  As a war movie, this isn't a great one (the characters are a bit thin), but the way that the movie quietly turns up the tension, and constantly keeps its heroes in a sense of danger is highly effective.

Even when Overlord starts to dip into Sci-Fi horror, it still knows how to keep us invested.  We see sights that are singularly shocking, but also kind of intriguing, because we want to know where the story is going to take these elements, and how far.  I found myself really invested, and the way that the movie plays with the audience, and slowly introduces this element works surprisingly well with the real world war scenario.  The way the movie balances both the gritty and realistic, and the gritty and fantastic, makes sense.  It's only in the third act that the movie goes too far into the horror genre, almost to the point of camp.  It is disappointing.  Was this silly climax insisted on by the studio, or was it in the script from the beginning?  I may never know.  What I do know is that this movie resembles something that is so good for most of its running time, and then loses its nerve.

I'm recommending this on the strength of everything that comes before the third act.  It's not exactly a smart or deep thriller, but it's amazingly effective, and creates a genuine sense of dread, leaving you fearing for the people in the movie, and what's going to happen to them.  I can't say I'm not a little disappointed with the outcome, but to skip this because of a poor last half would be a mistake.  There's a lot to like here, and even if it doesn't nail the landing, it has one hell of a take off.

0 comments