Las Vegas Weekly

Impolex

Impolex

CineVegas 2009

Impolex

Riley O’Bryan, Ben Shapir, Bruno Meyrick Jones.

Directed by Alex Ross Perry

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Film reviews

There’s a lot about this trippy, reverse-reveal of a World War II period piece that’s lost in the woods. The mumbling protagonist, for example, a formerly brilliant soldier undertaking a mission impossible involving the seizure of two undetonated missiles. His headspace as well, a deteriorating, haphazard spiral that soon has him seeing visions (or are they?) of strangers, old friends, the piteous girl from his former life, gun-wielding scientists and one remarkably chatty octopus. Then there’s the plot itself: stingy on the details, overly plodding on the slow build and inconclusive in resolution. None of these elements alone could derail a potentially touching tale of duty and determination, but when combined with a palpable sense of simply trying much too hard to do something, anything outside the norm, the effect is zero emotional return.

O’Bryan as Tyrone is an undeniably winning and magnetic lead, but unfortunately he can’t save what amounts to a rural, retro version of Memento minus style, urgency or plot. It’s fine to obfuscate reality and play up elements of the fantastic to leave an audience as disoriented as the sap they’re watching trudge in circles, but someone somewhere ought to have a vague sense of direction.