“Red Rabbit. Red Rabbit, Red Rabbit.” The Maid ( María Elena Olivares)
As enigmatic as the maid’s repeated phrase is in Blink Twice, writer/director Zoe Kravitz’s original no secrets title for this slick thriller was “Pussy Island.” At any rate, Blink Twice is as challenging and arresting as the rich folk wrecker, The Menu, a few years ago.
Although Channing Tatum’s tech billionaire, Slater King, does experience some comeuppance, Kravitz’s real aim is the battle of the sexes, where she successfully puts women like waitress Frida (Naomi Ackie) lured to the island to party, at least by the conclusion at power par with the sexist men. Nevertheless, Tatum (engaged in real life to Kravitz) shows his chops as they veer into serious man quite different from Magic Mike.
While a repeated mantra about there being no revenge, just memory in life is a caution for those who have returned to the island, the women have a foreboding sense that something is wrong here before the champagne and sweetness go bad.
In addition to that apprehension is the recurring snake motif that promises an epic battle between the sexes transcending even the theme of the gulf between the haves and have nots. Not allowing Jordan Peele, Rian Johnson, or M. Night Shyamalan to outdo her in the plot twist category, Kravitz relies less on jump scares and more on the uncertainties of life and lives to jolt but not entirely surprise us as to the vagaries of life. As The Crying Game’s bartender so aptly said, “Who knows the secrets of the human heart?”
‘Blink twice if you’re in danger.”
Blink Twice
Director: Zoe Kravitz
Screenplay: Kravitz , E.T Feigenbaum (High Fidelity)
Cast: Channing Tatum (Logan Lucky), Naomi Ackie (The Batman)
Rating: R
Length: 1h 43m
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts NPR’s It’s Movie Time and Cinema Classics as well as podcasts Back Talk and Double Take (recently listed by Feedspot as two of the ten best NPR Movie Podcasts) out of WCBE 90.5 FM, Columbus, Ohio. Contact him at JohnDeSando52@gmail.com