Speaker 1: Many of us can relate to having a bad boss,
Speaker 1: a bad boss who maybe undervalues your work and overlooks
Speaker 1: your contributions, maybe someone who disparages you publicly and sees
Speaker 1: you as expendable. However, rarely are we put into a
Speaker 1: position where not only do they have to directly acknowledge
Speaker 1: our value, but that value is the difference between life
Speaker 1: and death for them. It's Send Help. I'm Ronald Young Junior,
Speaker 1: and I'm leaving the theater all right. This is Ronald
Speaker 1: and I am leaving the theater after seeing Send Help.
Speaker 1: Send Help. Written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, directed
Speaker 1: by Sam Raymie, starring Rachel McAdams and Dylan O'Brien, and
Speaker 1: as usual, for complete listing of the cast and crew,
Speaker 1: check out the link in our show notes. It is
Speaker 1: just me today, all right. Send Help is a film
Speaker 1: about a woman who works in an office where she
Speaker 1: is underappreciated, very very very underappreciated. She is very good
Speaker 1: and capable at her job, and her boss promises her
Speaker 1: a promotion, but then he dies and the company is
Speaker 1: taken over by his son, who decides to give her
Speaker 1: job to one of his friends. After doing this, they
Speaker 1: then go on a very important business trip in which
Speaker 1: she is required to be there, and they get on
Speaker 1: a private plane. The plane crashes and the woman and
Speaker 1: her boss, the woman being Rachel McAdams as Linda and
Speaker 1: her boss being whatever his name is played by Dylan O'Brien,
Speaker 1: are stranded on an island. Now, one of the points
Speaker 1: of this movie is that the main character is a
Speaker 1: huge fan of the television series Survivor and as a result,
Speaker 1: has garnered a lot of skills to be able to
Speaker 1: take care of herself on a desert island. So when
Speaker 1: they get to the island, all of a sudden, she
Speaker 1: becomes the one that is way more valuable and her
Speaker 1: boss becomes the one who is less valuable. I liked
Speaker 1: parts of this movie, but largely I didn't like it
Speaker 1: that much. I feel like this is a movie that
Speaker 1: takes an idea that I really like, which is what
Speaker 1: is valuable when there's no electricity, or rather, who is
Speaker 1: valuable when there's no electricity? Because we find that the
Speaker 1: people that we value the most are the most valuable
Speaker 1: when there's electricity, But if there's no electricity, it turns
Speaker 1: out the people that we value the least all of
Speaker 1: a sudden way more valuable, meaning do you know how
Speaker 1: to build a fire? Do you have any survival skills?
Speaker 1: If we turned off the lights right now, who would survive?
Speaker 1: And this is examining that question in a way that
Speaker 1: I thought was interesting from the previews. A couple years ago,
Speaker 1: there was a Best Picture nominee called Triangle sad This
Speaker 1: idea is played out better in Triangle of Sadness than
Speaker 1: I think in this film. In Triangle of Sadness, you
Speaker 1: have the cleaning staff who is stranded on an island
Speaker 1: with these very ultra rich people from the mega yacht
Speaker 1: they were just on. And the woman who was in
Speaker 1: the cleaning staff knows how to survive, which all of
Speaker 1: a sudden makes her in charge. And the rich folks
Speaker 1: that are there are like, wait a minute, we're rich.
Speaker 1: You can't tell us, And she's like, what are y'all
Speaker 1: gonna do here? And I remember that's a very strong
Speaker 1: premise to of the movie. But then the central debate
Speaker 1: becomes do we stay here where I am very very
Speaker 1: valuable because I have all of these skills, and do
Speaker 1: I bypass any opportunity to get back where the person
Speaker 1: who is relying on me has way more power in
Speaker 1: that place, and that's kind of what we're wrestling between
Speaker 1: in this movie. Rachel McAdams feels comfortable on the island,
Speaker 1: wants to stay there, has no desire to go back
Speaker 1: to a world in which he's overlooked, works hard for
Speaker 1: no real payoff. And Dylan O'Brien wants to get back
Speaker 1: to the world where he's the king and he's in charge,
Speaker 1: and he doesn't he doesn't even really respect Rachel McAdams
Speaker 1: on this island. I enjoy this as an acting exercise
Speaker 1: between these two people that I love. I love Dylan
Speaker 1: O'Brien and I love Rachel McAdams. I love seeing Rachel McAdams.
Speaker 1: I feel like I don't see her as much as
Speaker 1: I used to, but it was good to see her
Speaker 1: and it was good to be reminded of what she's
Speaker 1: capable of in a film like this. It is a
Speaker 1: Sam Raimi film, which means that you get a lot
Speaker 1: of gore, a lot of very classic Sam Raimi stuff.
Speaker 1: If there's an eye, he's gonna poke it. If there's
Speaker 1: if there's blood, there's gonna be buckets of it. If
Speaker 1: there's an animal, it's gonna get skeured that's just who
Speaker 1: he is, and there's a lot of that in this film.
Speaker 1: Early in the film I thought it was I was
Speaker 1: with it, I was with where the I was with
Speaker 1: the original premise. I think it's a good idea, and
Speaker 1: I was with the original premise. But then I feel
Speaker 1: like the movie starts to kind of amble along and
Speaker 1: not really keep up the pace. It doesn't really build
Speaker 1: in a way. It kind of it botches a reveal
Speaker 1: by telling us a little too much too early. I
Speaker 1: think based on how they do a reveal in this
Speaker 1: film later in it, it seems to me that it
Speaker 1: would have been better served for them to hold a
Speaker 1: little bit more back and put it all in the reveal,
Speaker 1: but that's not what they chose to do, so for me,
Speaker 1: it felt like it deflated this kind of twist in
Speaker 1: the movie. At times, this movie kind of reminded me
Speaker 1: of Misery, the Kathy Bates movie with James I'm Forgetting
Speaker 1: His James Came, James Khn, James Kahn, James Khn. It
Speaker 1: reminded me of that movie for a while, and when
Speaker 1: it was more that movie than it was whatever this
Speaker 1: movie was, I thought it was better when it was
Speaker 1: when it was pushing more towards misery, I thought it
Speaker 1: was a better movie, but when it was kind of
Speaker 1: moving away from misery, it just it didn't feel as
Speaker 1: good in my opinion. So overall, it's fine, but it's
Speaker 1: not really saying much and it's it's not I felt
Speaker 1: like there was maybe there was a conversation about what
Speaker 1: it means to like again the valuable who's valuable, where
Speaker 1: that conversation isn't really examined in a way where the
Speaker 1: characters get to talk about it, so the characters don't
Speaker 1: really approach that, so that I felt like at some
Speaker 1: point there was no change in these characters. They stay
Speaker 1: the same from the beginning to the end, and when
Speaker 1: you get to the end of the movie, it doesn't
Speaker 1: It's not like you get to a place where you
Speaker 1: feel like they went on a journey and now we
Speaker 1: understand them more. The movie just ends, and I think
Speaker 1: people can walk out of this being like, well, that
Speaker 1: was fun, and some people will think that I was
Speaker 1: with colleagues tonight who thought it was fun, and for me,
Speaker 1: I want them to grapple with it a little bit more,
Speaker 1: grapple with the idea. You have a very good idea,
Speaker 1: let's grapple with it. And I feel like Triangle of
Speaker 1: Sadness does a very good job of that and ends ambiguously,
Speaker 1: which makes it even tougher, you know, whereas in this
Speaker 1: one there is no ambiguous ending. At some point several
Speaker 1: times I thought, Oh, is this are we dealing with?
Speaker 1: Is someone dreaming? Is this just all in someone's mind?
Speaker 1: What's happening here? But it ends up being very surface
Speaker 1: level in that it's not in someone's mind, this is
Speaker 1: actually happening. And as a result, I just felt like,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I just felt like, well, why am
Speaker 1: I watching this? And I wouldn't watch it again. I
Speaker 1: feel like there were parts of this. I'd watch Triangle
Speaker 1: of Sadness again right now, and the majority of that
Speaker 1: movie is not on a desert island, And I'm telling
Speaker 1: you I would watch that entire movie right now once again. Granted,
Speaker 1: I don't know how it being on a desert island
Speaker 1: would make it more of a valuable movie to watch
Speaker 1: for me, but I would watch it again right now.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't watch this again. I love Dylan O'Brien, I
Speaker 1: love Rachel McAdams, and for their sakes and for my enjoyment.
Speaker 1: I hope that this movie does well when people like it,
Speaker 1: so that they get more roles and continue to keep working.
Speaker 1: But outside of that, ugh, this one, this one wasn't
Speaker 1: really it for me. With all of that being said,
Speaker 1: I give it a two. I give it a two
Speaker 1: of five stars. Normally I'd be like, I give it
Speaker 1: a two point nine to nine. But I really didn't
Speaker 1: like it, and I don't want to watch it again,
Speaker 1: especially knowing where it's going and knowing that it could
Speaker 1: have been a better movie. There's at one point in
Speaker 1: this film in which, again, when it's more misery, it's better,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't quite grasp misery. And I feel like
Speaker 1: at one point, and when I say misery, I mean
Speaker 1: misery the movie, I realized that sentence can sound like
Speaker 1: I'm just saying when there's more suffering in the film.
Speaker 1: There's one point in the movie in which Dylan O'Brien
Speaker 1: decides that he's getting out of here no matter what,
Speaker 1: and so he does something to Rachel McAdams in order
Speaker 1: to make his move to leave the island. However, she
Speaker 1: wasn't holding him captive. He didn't have to do that,
Speaker 1: which was confusing to me because I thought I missed something.
Speaker 1: I remember thinking, is she holding him captive? But she
Speaker 1: never was. She never was. So yeah, two of five
Speaker 1: stars and with that leaving the theater is a production
Speaker 1: of Oh It's Big Ron Studios. I mixed this episode.
Speaker 1: By the time you're hearing this, we are done with
Speaker 1: January and we are strongly in February Eve though I'm
Speaker 1: recording this in January, and we've done a lot in
Speaker 1: the Patreon. We've done a lot, We've delivered a lot.
Speaker 1: We've delivered a lot, and everything that we've delivered has
Speaker 1: hopefully made your contributions see more worth it for all
Speaker 1: of you. However, it is a lot of work. This
Speaker 1: is labor. I am very tired right now. I got
Speaker 1: off a plane today, went home, did some laundry, immediately
Speaker 1: got back in my car, got my recorder, came to
Speaker 1: this screening because it was the only time that I
Speaker 1: could go and I didn't want to miss this movie
Speaker 1: and I want to keep doing good work for y'all.
Speaker 1: So it is a labor of love, but it is labor.
Speaker 1: If that means something to you, go to patreon dot
Speaker 1: com slash oh It's Big Ron, or go to the
Speaker 1: link in our show notes. Show art from Heather Wilder.
Speaker 1: Theme music by the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder. For more information
Speaker 1: about send help, check out our show notes. You can
Speaker 1: follow me on Instagram, blue Sky, TikTok, threads, or letterboxed
Speaker 1: at oh It's Big Ron That's at hit Sbig r
Speaker 1: o N. Can find out more about this show and
Speaker 1: other Owis Big Round Studio shows by following us on
Speaker 1: Instagram at Owits Big Round Studios leaving the theater will
Speaker 1: be back soon. Thanks for listening. I'm Ronald Young Junior
Speaker 1: and I'm James King, James Conn, James Conn, James Conn