Review by Bryan Yentz
Starring Brittany Ashworth and Gregory Fitoussi
Written and Directed by Mathieu Turi
Fulltime Films
I’ll be up front, HOSTILE was not what I was expecting. While I shrugged my shoulders at the dime-a-dozen RESIDENT EVIL-esque trailer, it was the sight of Xavier Gens’ name attached to the project that engaged my curiosity. I’m a fan of the writer/director (despite his recent effort COLD SKIN being a middling affair in ambition) and if he was condoning the picture with his very own moniker, well then, I’m in.
Unfortunately, as I said above, HOSTILE defied expectations but not in a positive way. Really, this isn’t a post-apocalyptic film. Yes, the movie is bookended by a sandscape of doom and gloom (with sporadic scenes dusted between), but a heavy portion of the movie is actually spent in flashback, as a dramatic romance between our protagonist Juliet (Brittany Ashworth) and a prince charming named Jack (Gregory Fitoussi). You see, in the present post-apocalypse, Juliet has crashed her vehicle and broken her leg. Now stranded, she’s stalked by an inconvenient zombie-mutant that occasionally groans, shuffles and bangs on her incapacitated ride. What’s she to do? Well, she improvises some meager survival tactics, but spends the majority of her night remembering the past, namely the tragic love she had with Jack prior to whatever ruined the Earth.
In some universe, this crossbreed of genre could work (I mean, it kinda already did with IT STAINS THE SANDS RED), but the biggest, most glaring, most blatant flaw that brings down all of HOSTILE’s potentially moving intentions is its central “heroine”. I can’t remember a film in recent memory that has crafted an entire feature around a more unlikable character, but HOSTILE has now taken that mantle. Normally, a narrative offers a semblance, a smidge, a miniscule piece of positivity to a lead character—that a viewer might support and ultimately root for, even when they do some negative things. But not here! Within the first few minutes, HOSTILE presents Juliet as a loner “badass” that loots about the desert and doesn’t give two shits about others (even if they’re bleeding out from a gutted stomach). However, as soon as her backstory begins, HOSTILE becomes a stream of sequences wherein Juliet is simply shown to be a consistently awful person. There is rarely a single moment of the movie wherein she isn’t a toxic, sarcastic, whiny brat who either verbally assaults or threatens anyone that doesn’t abide by her mode of entitlement. And we’re supposed to pity her? Such an abnormal choice in character focus is brought further down by Brittany Ashworth’s low-quality line-readings, who reports her dialogue with some wince-inducing inflections—as if she had just read her parts moments before filming.
Jack is the epitome of a “good guy” (almost to an unrealistic fault). He does everything for her, saves her from her vices, loves her, coddles her, buys her anything her heart desires and allows her a new life outside the confines of whoring and drugs. What is her reaction? Any thanks? Nope! Every scene of potential bliss is ruined by her unpleasant (and limited) dialogue which consists of her yelling, swearing or arguing with him. One moment has her become flustered with him because he’s not thinking of enough nice things to say about her in a quick enough manner. Seriously. Her character offers nothing meaningful to any discussion and she constantly derails every moment of sincerity in order to fuel her own hubris.
In another ridiculous sequence (during the post-apocalyptic portion), she’s told via walkie-talkie that her survivalist comrades can’t reach her until morning due to the threat of zombie-mutant hordes at night. So what does she do? Calmly assess her situation and devise a plan to barricade herself in the wrecked ride? Nope! She yells into the mic that she will hunt down and murder (yes that’s right!), hunt down and MURDER her comrade(s) for considering the safety of the entire group over her. During her tirade, her compatriot disconnects, which further infuriates and confuses her. Um, you uh, just threatened to kill them? Maybe that’s why they don’t want to talk to you now?
As a character, there’s no arc. She doesn’t learn from mistakes, she just keeps taking out her aggression on people that don’t deserve it (and consistently becoming sadder as the plot shambles onward isn’t any sort of a revelation, it’s just a character trait). Again, in a normal narrative of this nature, the flashbacks would be utilized as a means of showing how she got to this point, how her past helped her become a survivor in dire circumstances, how she learned to fight, use firearms, how it gave her the necessary training to fend for herself, but HOSTILE forgoes such personal development in favor of what? Plot holes and inconsistencies? That sometimes relationships can just suck? Due to her looking the exact same as she did in the flashbacks, we can surmise that the post-apocalypse occurred quite recently, so there was ZERO time for her to go from spoiled child to uber-survivor. That there’s not even a hint as to how society could so hastily drop off the map into a hellhole is another question mark that’s never even slightly addressed (and no, a news report of a single chemical attack in a single metro doesn’t justify the whole world crumbling). By the end, HOSTILE even tries to win some good grace with a “twist” that’s way too obvious and strains all credibility in a false attempt to get one last tear-jerk from the audience.
I’m not sure which came first, the post-apocalyptic story or that of the present-day romance, but it’s as if the filmmakers knew they didn’t have enough content to support either, so they just forced them together—in turn, failing at both. Maybe another draft was in order? One that either wrote Juliet to be the least bit sympathetic instead of a bully? Or better yet, how about one that excised her from the script completely?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85tVOKxqd2A
This is a terrible review and quite inaccurate as well. She wasn’t a whore, there was no evidence she was whoring. She was selling and using drugs yes but it’s no surprise to me that every single man who writes a review on this automatically assume she’s a whore because she must be, right. Sexist much? By the way it’s pretty obvious the character suffers from horrible trauma. Jack could see through that which is why he loved her. Yeah she never told him she loved him until the very end but that’s part of her redeeming qualities at the end that you don’t seem to see. And why wouldn’t she tell the people back at Camp she’s going to kill them? She goes out there everyday risking her life looking for food so that the dumb bitches back at the camp can continue to have babies in a world where there’s no food or water? I wouldn’t stay with those people, they’re idiots! they deserve to die and not just because they left Juliet out there on her own either. What movie did you watch? You would never survive an apocalypse! Lol
No self respecting opinion worth any consideration ends with “LOL”. Any point, valid or not, was just shot down by you making yourself look like you’re 11 years old.
Also, yeah, the movie was rather poor.
My question is what gas caused Jack to turn into that…. and where did they take him after she had last seen him
100 % agree Marsin this was a brilliant move, I for one loved the character of Juliette and Jack.
I’ll disagree with you on that. She was very much not a likeable character. Her group also didn’t deserve to die just for not being able to reach her until morning. 30+ people deserve to be killed for that? No.
CS…, I agree with you. She was a horrible bratty mean annoying woman.
Overall I thought it was a good film worth watching. The lead actress perhaps did come off a little stunted in her delivery of a handful of lines particularly when she first meets the lead actor in the gallery. But for the most part I truly enjoyed her performance. Particularly her Facial expressions they are very natural and compelling. She does emotion very well whether anger sadness lovingness hate etc. I look forward to seeing her in other films. The lead actor was excellent in all his scenes. I don’t think it’s a four star horror flick but the 3 1/2 stars it gets on Amazon I believe is accurate. Yes they didn’t explain the apocalypse and it kind of seemed unexplainable but That wasn’t the point of the film. that wasn’t the point of the film. It’s woman versus monster with flashbacks of what I thought was a rather touching love story. Not a perfect horror flick but worth watching.
I would also say and I’m no expert horror flicks although I watched plenty that the mix of the romance backstory with women versus monster was interesting and rather unique. I think the Raiders should be happy with themselves in that regard. I believe there was enough of a character arc for the heroine to make it Interesting. Remember this is a horror flick it’s not the Godfather. Remember this is a horror flick it’s not the Godfather. I won’t say what I think it is so as not to give away the film but again worth watching.
Even horror films deserve good writing.
I just finished watching this. Your review was more entertaining than the movie. It sucked!
I felt as thought the ending left me with more questions then answers. The creature being jack all along was a good twist that was hinted to since he saved her from the guy with the knife. At the same time I felt like they could have cut half of the romance out and given more information on the apocalypses and the monsters. Definitely more of a romance then a horror.
I think the movie was amazing! I loved the love story behind it! He fell in love and took care of her and tried to show and teach her how to love. Unfortunately…she showed him too late. But the twist at the end was beyond great! The end had me messed up and in tears. Never saw it coming! Good movie!
Anyone else sees Jacks character as a sick man stalking and following women in life and death?
They are both fit for one another, sick individuals. Movie was a cheese head fantasy, nothing scary about this except avoid emotionally unstable people.
I shat myself after watching this movie 🙁
I like the thought of Juliette trying to battle her way through her addiction and jack eventually saving her being the monster but that’s all she can see him being the monster eventually she gets through her dark patch (NIGHT) and then reunites with jack telling him she loves him I feel like there’s something like that going on with the film just a thought though!
TERRIBLE and Biased Review that makes no sense whatsoever.
Seems the writer is a sexist MCP with zero consideration for anything Juliet went through.
All he does is judge her throughout.
A bit too quick on the draw with claiming the reviewer is sexist. Juliette was kinda a shit character. Not very relatable or likeable.
There is a lot I could say about this movie which I find to be more of a romantic and heart felt movie. I found there are metaphors in this movie. I might be wrong about the end so forgive if I am. But in the beginning Jack this handsome guy found beauty in Juliet who was beautiful on the outside but ugly in the inside because of the drug abuse, yet Jack didn’t focus on her drug abuse but rather the potential beauty that Juliet has hidden. Jack showed Juliet an art piece that Juliet found to be one of a monster, and Jack told her to look closely. So many times because of human nature we look on the outwards when thinking of beauty, but so many times beauty is that of the inward. My last point and this is where am not sure because I think I got the ending right. But this is my view of the ending of this movie. Jack in the end wasn’t so beautiful on the outward anymore but rather looked like a monster, Juliet being the beautiful one outwardly in the end, showed this monster love as she reminisced about Jack, if you remember there are scenes where Jack kept asking her if she loved him. Love and relationship can be so complicated, but for any thing to last it takes work and love to look past the ugly that we all struggle with. I thought it was worth watching.
This movie is the same churned out, tired garbage that keeps getting consumed by the standard Netflix audience, which doesn’t mean it’s good. In fact, this “style” of movie, with its bad acting, dialouge, pacing, continuity and general poor character and story arc is sadly the type of film being praised lately. The two lead actors screen chemistry is flat and fake, plus the main “heroine” Juliette is irredeemabley annoying. This may be due to either the director or the actress, but it makes the character horrible. We deserve better and used to expect better films than this. All the hate against the original review calling the reviewer sexist is just absurd. It’s a bad film.
Juliette’s dope dealer said that their boss was upstairs waiting for her. Juliette then brings Jack up to the apartment and the boss tells Jack, “enjoy yourself,” before exiting his apartment. If you think that’s doesn’t happen frequently with Juliette, you are blessed to be so naïve . In a nutshell. Jack speaks of how the universe, through destiny and fate, brings two individuals together, no matter what. In short; He believes the spirit never dies, only the body. Jack wasn’t changed into a monster. Jacks spirit was manifested in the reaper, and fate brought Juliette and Jack back together again. Juliette, now realizing this, and is now willing to loose herself with Jack (the reaper). Something she was always afraid to do while Jack was in his former form. She now believe that they will always be together no matter what.