Sam Raimi blends slapstick, gore, and gender politics as a stranded executive learns that cruelty has consequences.
By James Verniere/Boston Movie News
“Send Help,” Sam Raimi’s amusing send-up of gender politics, is a feminist (men suck) reboot of Tom Hanks’ favorite “Cast Away” (2000). The original screenplay (sort of) was written by avid recyclers Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, known for “Baywatch,” “Freddy vs. Jason,” and “Friday the 13th.” It’s another variation on Daniel Defoe’s 1719 desert island tale, “Robinson Crusoe.” But in this case, instead of Robinson Crusoe and “his man” Friday. We have R. Crusoe and his pals, The Three Stooges.
“Survivor” superfan Linda Liddle (the often underestimated Rachel McAdams) is a gas as your classic oppressed self-effacing, not-so-young woman, whose name rhymes with “little,” in a male-dominated corporate jungle. She may be a bit of goofball with a fondness for smelly tuna fish sandwiches eaten at her desk. But she also has a flair for numbers and hard work and has amply contributed to her company’s success. But she puts off her coworkers with her weird vibe and is taken advantage of by a male, new executive hire, who just happens to have been in the same frat as CEO Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien), the untested young son of the company’s late founder, whose father promised Linda a promotion to vice-president. To make matters worse, the new hire plays golf (Linda does not).
The opening scenes of the film establish many of Linda’s “cringe” characteristics, including sharing a sandwich with her parrot-like small bird, but also establish our connection to her. However icky some of her habits are, we relate to Linda as the put-upon woman in this scenario, not to golf-buff frat boy Bradley, a heartless scoundrel who likes shouting orders. When Bradley and his male buds howl at a laptop display of Linda’s audition for “Survivor” while she sits only a short distance away aboard a private jet taking them to Bangkok, a terrible storm damages the jet. Two of the young men who treated Linda cruelly are maimed horribly and sucked out of the passenger compartment. Only Linda appears to survive. But we know (from the trailers) that Bradley also makes it, although he is injured.
Suddenly, Linda has the upper hand. She knows how to build a shelter out of palm fronds and vines, harvest drinking water, catch fish, flake rocks, weave reeds into hats. clothing and other gear, and even, in one of the film’s most memorable bits, hunt a surprisingly bloodthirsty wild boar.
Raimi, the director of the great hit indie horror film “The Evil Dead” (1981) and the 1992 cult favorite “Army of Darkness,” as well as the early “Spider-Man” films, is a well-known fan of The Three Stooges, and he indulges that enthusiasm with relish. The violence that marks the Stooges becomes even greater and more horrific in “Send Help.” Also, get ready for copious amounts of projectile vomit. Bad guys get their comeuppance in ways that are equally hilarious and horrifying (the jet crash sequence is worth the proverbial price of admission). I saw “Send Help” in IMAX with Dolby sound effects coursing through my plush, reclining seat. The crash sequence was literally spine-tingling.
O’Brien, of those terrible “Maze Runner” films, is a revelation here. He leaps into Bradley’s awfulness with such dark energy that you hardly recognize him. His Bradley is not just the film’s bad guy. He’s a Martin Scorsese-level bad guy, a privileged, young man totally consumed by hatred and greed. Bradley tries to play nice when he needs Linda’s help to recover, and we enjoy the power she suddenly has over this wretch. But we know that soon he’s going to be the film’s even wilder animal.
But what’s most surprising is the lengths Linda will go to maintain her supremacy over Bradley, including feeding him a grilled, venomous, blue-ringed octopus. Raimi and his writers expect us to believe that there is a darkness inside all of us, that, given the right circumstances, will reveal itself. McAdams, who played Irene Adler in those Guy Ritchie “Sherlock Holmes” films (as well as a certain “Mean Girl”) is completely committed to the physical demands of her role, including being puked in the face by an agonized boar. But I found Linda’s descent into darker evil not entirely credible. On the other hand, her favorite karaoke song is the surprisingly creepy, Debbie Harry-sung and co-written pop hit “One Way Or Another” (“I’m gonna get ya, get ya, get ya.”).
Score by the great Danny Elfman (in his seventh collaboration with Raimi) adds a typical playful and also eerie touch. “Send Help” was shot in Australia and Thailand. The island, with its jutting granite cliffs, is key to its iconography. It’s beautiful. But, as Thomas Hobbes observed in “Leviathan,” life in the “state of nature” is “nasty, brutish and short.” Of course, he should have added, “funny.”
‘Send Help’
Rating: R for strong/bloody violence and language
Cast: Rachel McAdams, Dylan O’Brien, Dennis Haysbert
Director: Sam Raimi
Writer: Damian Shannon, Mark Swift
Running time: 1 hour, 53 minutes
Where to watch: In theaters
Grade: B+
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