REVIEW - THE EAST

The East is a message movie that's not actually very interested in its message. And if it's an exercise in informing people of the evils of major corporations, the wise thing to do would not be to make one's anarchist heroes a troupe of gnarly stereotypes. But if it's an exercise in even-handedness, then what's the message? The propulsion comes in the form of thriller archetypes, which are dotted through a film that soon morphs into a rather tamer beast than its high-octane marketing suggests. Zal Batmanglij, for all his lofty aims, is an able, practical director, with a gift for pitching scenes at the exact level you expected, and even allowing the viewer to preempt his directorial decisions. So he's a talent when it comes to manufacturing tension, but when The East's narrative gears start turning a little slower (or a lot slower), he's not creative enough to maintain our attention. Vapid scenes of rote sexual heat dribble ever onward at snail pace, with any chance of a 'will they / won't they' evaporating the instant Alexander Skarsgard turns up, and you know it's essential that the lead female must fall for him. She comments on the self-righteousness of his gang of 'eco-terrorists', which Batmanglij seems to think is one of her bourgeois, capitalist, individualist notions, whereas she doesn't even get close to nailing the extent of their pretentiousness, condescension, hypocrisy and naivety. Some neat details in the first half hour promise a richer experience than is eventually delivered, and plot momentum recedes as soon as Batmanglij's interest shifts from the film's requirements as a thriller to its indulgences as an ineffectual romance.