Saturday, May 13, 2017

Get Out (2017)

Director: Jordan Peele
Writer: Jordan Peele
DOP: Toby Oliver
Cast: Daniel Caluuya, Allison Williams, Bradley Whitford, Catherine Keener

A young African-American man visits his Caucasian girlfriend's family estate. He is little uncomfortable because his girlfriend hasn't informed her parents that her current boyfriend is black. But she assures him that they are not racist and are super-liberal and would've voted for Obama a third time. Yeah, right. Things get a bit diabolical there.

Film is very relevant for its time where people are questioning the idea of post-racial America. It is not the racism of regular redneck Americans that is being scrutinized but that of the liberal elite types. That said, it is not political in the serious award bait kind of way and is more of a genre film with the genre being horror-comedy. The central situation is a black guy attending a party full of white guys with only the servants being the other black presence. The debutante director, who made his name as a comedian, could go the places that he did go because of it being a comedy film under the veneer of horror.

Film is produced by Blumhouse, founded by Jason Blum, that had also backed 'Split'. They are known for making low-budget horror films which tend to do very well at box office with Paranormal Activity being one of their earlier features. Get Out was made with a meagre budget of $5 million and went on to gross over two hundred million. It is a great watch overall with an excellent central performance from Daniel Caluuya who you might remember from Sicario. One film that you could compare it with is Hot Fuzz but with more full-on horror.

Rating: 4.5/5

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