February 12, 2025

BLINK TWICE (2024) – Channing Tatum does a good bad guy act

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Rating: ⭐⭐ 1/2

blinktwice

Blick Twice starts off interestingly enough when we follow the escapade of two cocktail waitresses Frida and Jess, when they gate crash a fund raiser gala and caught the attention of the event’s main star, reclusive billionaire Slater King. Slater King has made a name of himself in the social media as a remorseful and reclusive person with immense wealth with a private island. To their surprise, they get invited to join Slater for a vacation at his island and that’s when things begin to feel creepier and creepier amidst the endless partying, sunbathing and getting high.

First time director and writer, Zoe Kravitz who is multi-talented, demonstrates an impressive command behind the camera. The atmosphere and mood of the first portion of the film succeeded in creating aa feeling of uneasiness through a contrasting audio-visual display of fun and energy. We naturally expect things would go terribly wrong by the second half otherwise there would not be much of a story to tell. Zoe keeps the viewers guessing and in suspense as to when the bad things would reveal itself.

Unfortunately, the film’s second half progressively when downhill once the revelation has been disclosed. It soon turned into the familiar bloodbath ritual as one by one of the baddies get their just dues. The motivation of the antagonists and how they got around in their deception to their unsuspecting victims involving some sort of “magic” portions, were to say the least, preposterous. Why they need to go about doing all the things they do when they have louds of money to spend and can probably buy their pleasures from many willing parties without breaking any laws in the process. The gaps in logic kept piling in as we reach the final act including a formulaic ending shot to cast one last whammy statement. The film also suffers from being a borderline vehicle to promote women power as (sorry slight spoiler ahead ….) practically every male in the film is a bad guy!

Blink Twice starts off well but ends rather unremarkably. It has a stellar cast that includes a number of familiar faces including Kyle MacLachlan, Geena Davis, Haley Joel Osment (remember that kid who can see dead people in The Sixth Sense?), and Christian Slater. Unfortunately, none of them were given any opportunity to shine as all the characters they play were pretty 1-dimensional and forgettable. I have to admit that I was impressed by Channing Tatum as the main villain Slater King. I don’t think I have seen him play the bad guy before and he does a great job here. He is so different here from the recent film I saw him in, Fly Me To The Moon. Naomi Ackie is also effective as the leading lady although I fail to see the chemistry and attraction she had on Slater.

All in all, a flawed attempt in the thriller genre. Watchable at best but forgettable.

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