Sometimes you just gotta watch an action film without expecting high art.
Braven
Sometimes you consciously must watch a B thriller to take your mind off the people you love at holiday time. I recommend a VOD melodrama, Braven, with the very brave Joe (Jason Momoa, trading his notable muscles for survival smarts). It’s Newfoundland, very snowy cold, and bad guys want the drugs Joe’s timber-trucking employee, Weston (Brendan Fletcher), stashed in Joe’s remote cabin. If you can see it all coming, just enjoy Brian Andrew Mendoza’s lensing of a location made for the camera.
Yes, edge of your seat with the usual thriller tropes like a wife and daughter making it tres dangerous and an ailing father, Linden (Stephen Lang), who has a few good licks left before dementia conquers him. Headed by Kassen (Garrett Dillahunt), a tall, smart, military-looking drug courier, his crew uses guns to force the drugs from Joe, while he uses whatever he can find, from red-hot tongs and hunting bows to a bear trap and a hatchet along the way.
Director Lin Oeding and writer Thomas Pa’s Sibbett give almost no background for working-class Joe and no metaphysics or over-sentimentality, just a big guy saving his family and maybe not his cabin. Of course, this means you have no idea where Joe learned his considerable skills. Yet, the freshman director allows time for character development as the chase takes over. Minimalism rules here.
Momoa comports himself like Dwayne Johnson without the self-deprecating humor (no humor in this chase). If another Momoa thriller comes along, I’m in for its simplicity and maturity although I won’t learn much about human nature other than its greed.
As for the family motif, I will gladly see another Braven adventure flick where family is more valuable than drugs, where finding home is the hero’s journey. That’s not bad for these parlous times.
By John DeSando
Bravern
Director: Lin Oeding
Screenplay: Thomas Pa’s Sibbett (The Last Manhunt)
Cast: Jason Momoa (Aguaman), Garrett Dillahunt (12 Years a Slave)
Run Time: 1h 34
Rating: R
Available on Netflix
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JohnDeSando62@gmail.com
