Contrecoups

Jason Segel breaks into the isolated luxury villa of tech billionaire Jesse Plemons and his wife, Lily Collins. They suddenly appear and Segel has to hold them at gunpoint and decide how he his going to get out of the mess he's got himself into.

Interesting chamber piece set entirely at the villa (very nice it is too) and therefore you can easily see it as a neat 3 act play performed on stage. Whilst it starts lightly enough with a degree of humour, the tables turn on Segel as Plemons starts to get increasingly angered at the situation, letting his true colours shine through. As the film progresses it becomes pretty clear what the direction of travel is going to be, although this doesn't alter the fact the film has a neat ending. All 3 leads do well, but Plemons keeps the electricity going with his performance as an increasingly unlikeable rich guy.

As "Windfall" (2022 release; 92 min.) opens, a man is walking around a southern property. It quickly becomes apparent that the man is in fact robbing the property. Just as he is about to finish up, a couple arrives at the property. It's not long before the man is found out and he takes the couple hostage... At this point we are 10 min into the film.

Couple of comments: this is the latest movie from director Charlie McDowell ("The Discovery"). Here he brings a barebones hostage drama that seems appropriate for the times in which it was made: smack in the middle of the pandemic. Hence only 4 actors (the three mentioned earlier, plus the gardener in a limited appeareance), and one single location. At times this very much feels like a theater play. Once the story line is set, nothing much really happens (until the very end, that is) and instead we get to know the personalities. Is the robber really a bad guy? And what of the ultra-rich CEO? Is the hostage drama causing a rift in the marriage? All three lead performances are good, in particular Jesse Plemons as the CEO. Lily Collins (a/k/a Mrs. Charlie McDowell in real life) plays the role of the wife. Jason Segel )playing the robber) is also credited as the film's co-writer. The film's overall minimalist approach reminded me more than once of Steven Soderbergh's work. Bottom line: this movie is nothing earth-shattering but still worth checking out.

"Windfall" premiered on Netflix this weekend. If you are in the mood for a barebones hostage drama with a theater-like feeling to it and starring some solid acting performances, I'd readily suggest you check this out, and draw your own conclusion.

It was nothing special,unique,original or not clichéd.. Including,how it ended.

Average all around from casting,acting & cinematography.

Not worth a second viewing,for any reason!

A man (Jason Segel) breaks into an unoccupied vacation home to steal money and valuables from it, only for his theft to become interrupted when the owner, a wealthy tech CEO (Jesse Plemons) and his wife (Lily Collins) arrive. With options limited, the man takes the CEO and his wife captive and extorts a large sum of money from them as tensions escalate not only between captor and captive, but also the CEO and his wife.

Windfall is the latest film from Charlie McDowell, director of The One I Love and The Discovery from a screenplay by Justin Lader and Andrew Kevin Walker (Seven, 8MM). The film is a chamber piece featuring only three actors in an isolated setting and feels like it harkens to other isolated chamber thrillers like Wait Until Dark or Dial M for Murder. While the movie featres some solid performances from its cast, it feels a little confused in its thematic elements.

While like many home invasion thrillers of this ilk, the movie is a cat and mouse game involving the invader's objective for money or some other valuable McGuffin, the movie tries to add a thematic subtext of class disparity and economic abandonment. The characters remain nameless throughout the story and are solely defined by their importance in the plot as well as their socio economic statuses. It's hinted throughout that Jason Segel's character has been made "redundant" thanks to an algorithm developed by Jesse Plemons CEO and the movie tries to tap into that working class frustration seen with paradigm shifts in our economy that have left many behind with absolutely no plan or consideration for where they go. Jesse Plemons as the CEO is really good acting as sort of an amalgam of several wealthy archetypes with a lot of grandstanding about being "self-made" and derision about those on lower rungs as "lazy whiners" who give up at the first obstacle and the movie tries to establish this situation as a microcosm of class tensions in a way similar to how Knives Out broached the subject of political tensions (albeit with dialed back humor and a way grimmer approach). Lily Collins plays the CEO's Wife, and her positioning in the film is strange. Collins character is established as having started out as an assistant saddled with student loan debt prior to marrying the CEO and now runs the charitable foundation of the CEO's company. She's also got a strained marriage with the CEO thanks to his infidelity and it's established pretty early on she harbors some resentment towards him.

The movie had me engrossed throughout thanks to the strength of its leads with Jason Segel playing against type in a more serious role as well as Jesse Plemons as an intriguing character who you're never quite certain of, and even Lily Collins despite playing a more nebulously defined character is still engaging in the role. But the movie stumbles in the third act. Per the standards of other Andrew Kevin Walker movies like Seven or 8MM, the movie tries to have a shocking twist which it is, but it's a twist that makes you think "why exactly did that happen?" and it feels like it throws away much of the themes it was trying to discuss because it couldn't figure out how to tie them up and instead just goes for some brutal violence.

Windfall is a solid enough chamber piece and a showcase for its three leads' talents, but on a story level it struggles to establish the themes it brings up and stumbles in the third act basically throwing away all the buildup for the sake of a shock that doesn't make sense on a character, storytelling, or thematic level.

It starts off with kind of a wacky, Coen Brothers energy and then turns into a much darker thriller. It's an intriguing premise and I liked the cast, but it feels a bit undercooked.

Things happen that don't have proper buildup or explanation and some of the logic is a bit iffy. It's interesting, however it can really drag with some of the long, awkward staring into space scenes. It's definitely not the best Netflix film, but far from the worst.