Ready Or Not

And Lockdowns

When it comes to “Ready Or Not”, the gory eat-the-rich thriller from the boys at Radio Silence, you can’t make this movie without a star. Which isn’t to say you don’t bankroll the movie unless you have someone that can fit on the marquee. In actuality, a star is anyone you can’t keep your eyes off, someone who commands the screen, someone you like regardless of the morality of their actions. Ansel Elgort, the wispy leading man of stuff like “The Fault In Our Stars”, “Baby Driver” and the “West Side Story” remake, isn’t a star, just a leading man (and, I’d say, barely so). But Samara Weaving in “Ready Or Not” is a 50 megaton star.

That was unnecessary shade towards Ansel Elgort. Zero regrets.

She’s prepping for her big wedding at the start of the film, to an aristocratic boy with kind eyes and a thoughtful demeanor. The baggage, of course, is a wealthy, snobbish family, each of whom appear to be constantly at each other’s throats. Weaving, all alertness and sharp attention, has an ear for dysfunction, but her chainsmoking suggests she knows there’s something off in the atmosphere.

That could be because these people are FREAKS. Not the “Society”-level half-man monstrosity-type of freak. No, they’re those who obtained their generational wealth through association with cult behaviors and secret societies. This manifests in a game of Hide And Seek, one in which Weaving is forced to participate. Unfortunately for her, the seeking involves weapons. And if she is not “found” by sunrise, it seems as if there is hell to pay for all of them.

This is a tricky film to make, because you have to set up the conflict and then tee off the games, but you also have to proceed quickly to the action, because that’s what people are expecting. You couldn’t make a movie like this for a major studio if the first hour was table-setting and the last half is the chase. That would be an interesting structure as far as developing character and conflict. But if you’re spending a lot of money on this film, then people will pay to see it expecting to get the “Seek” part quickly. Fortunately, Weaving is eased into the premise by a strong group of character actors. Henry Czerny is the family patriarch, and he’s a walking arched eyebrow of disapproval. Andie MacDowell makes a surprising entrance into this genre as a sarcastic passive-aggressive gossiper. Adam Brody, fresh off one of the more questionable busy resumes of anyone in Hollywood, is a surprising highlight as a sardonic, exasperated member of this wealthy family of killers. And “Van Helsing” fans (the SyFy series) would appreciate the appearance of Melanie Scrofano as a drug-addled potential sister-in-law.

But it’s Weaving who steals the show. Though the family at first sees her as a wallflower, she soon exhibits the kind of survivalist skills that suggests the family should prepare before trying to murder the family’s latest recruit. I’m not sure if the movie truly sticks the landing. Like the later movie from Radio Silence, “Abigail”, the bulk of the story takes place on a rich estate, and the locations eventually come across as repetitive, introducing a level of monotony to the third act that bogs down what is otherwise a rather brisk movie. After a long period of chase-and-slash, it becomes tedious to follow all the action through rooms that are different but seem the same. But that’s an insurmountable issue if you don’t have someone like Weaving onboard. She is not only the lead but the character that most closely identifies with the audience. There’s a natural disconnect, in that the audience would be alarmed or concerned with these characters, whereas Weaving is all-too-ready to lay down some righteous vengeance. That disconnect, the idea that you’ve been fooled into thinking the little blonde girl is unable to defend herself, nonetheless is the movie’s best gag, and it’s not a bad one.

I want to talk about lockdowns. It’s one of those unquestionable methods prisons have of saving them time, energy and money. Frequently, the entire prison was locked down because the officers would claim there aren’t enough of them working the compound. In reality, the officers are looking for any excuse to lock everyone down (including a fight, any fight), since it means they no one has to get up from their chair, no one has to provide surveillance, no one has to check on anyone. Just sit and wait until your shift is over. And if you have lockdown for a long period of time, it’s because no one wants to hire more guards. In the period when regulations were beginning to slow down from COVID, officers protested that more guards weren’t hired, largely because they went from being able to sit for hours to now having to actually do the job for which you were hired. I’ve never seen an officer overtasked.

The problem with lockdowns like this is that, because they are long-running, officers struggle to provide necessities to inmates like bathroom time and phone usage. The “safety of the compound” becomes a bigger priority than the rights of anyone in custody. Lockdown can also toy with your mind a bit. Consider it a combination of the repetitive day-to-day nothingness creating hobgoblins of the mind and the distaste men might have with their own crooked bedfellows. If criminals could get along famously, they probably wouldn’t be criminals. It becomes easy for them to ignore you, and results in situations like this.  Do not forget, we’re talking about prison, a place where they incapacitate the body in hopes of breaking it. If the mind goes along as well, that’s chalked up as an achievement.