Knock at the Cabin (2023)

    A very interesting film from M., certainly much better than Old that I watched about two months ago. Knock begins with what seems (to me at least) to be a tribute to the original Frankenstein when the hulking Leonard (Bautista) meets little Wen (Cui) and begins to help her catch grasshoppers. The two share a few moments of friendly chatter and I could see that there is some sort of connection that Leonard has with children as he relates to her very well. Or at least he has with this particular child. Things quickly take a turn as Leonard is joined by the other three members of his group.

  Although Redmond (Grint) isn't in the film very long he gives an intense few moments as he meets his fate. As he is pulling the white cloth over his head I could feel his fear but also was convinced he knew this was something he had to do and was dedicated to performing his part. In fact there isn't a weak performance in the film. If there is anything negative to say it is that after the first twenty to thirty minutes of the film Chui (who is impressive none the less), begins to shrink into the background and her impressive talent from the opening scenes melt away and becomes a standard child actor. Nothing wrong with that as she is still better than most child actors I see in films today.    

 

What I want to also point out is the job Dave Bautista gives here. I've known Bautista since his days as a wrestler in the WWE. Wasn't much of a fan as for the most part he came across mostly as just a muscle head who did what he did best which was have a lot of muscles and be mean. Here, he is also large (probably the biggest I've ever seen him) and menacing but I also see another side of him. I see his humanity, his understanding that what he is asking this family to do is nearly impossible to do. He tries to be as understanding as possible and gives them as much of a chance as he can to do the right thing. Even though he knows that allowing them to take their time deciding brings him even closer to his own demise.

 

 All of the "Horseman" exit the film nearly as quickly as they came in to the film. It would have been nice to get some back story on them as I felt more attuned to the four of them than I did the family. The question is are they crazy? Apparently not, but Eric, Andrew, and Wen can't know that. I mean really, put yourself in their situation and tell me it's easy to decide what to do. And if it's easy to figure out who you would kill in your family then your family isn't as close as it could be. What I hope we could get is a prequel where we see the "4" each receiving their "call" and how they met and so on. I dunno, maybe call it "Before the Knock" or some shit like that. I think if I had more backstory on them I could have given this a higher score.  Another way it gets close to a four for me is because it gets the hometown discount.  The truck stop restaurant we see at the end of the movie is a place I've been many times growing up in South Jersey.  The only difference is it's actual name is The Evergreen Dairy Bar.  When my family and I would go "down the shore" when I was a kid we would stop here on the way for a quick breakfast or lunch.  Good memories in there. As it is I think three and a half grasshoppers out of five is a fair score but a prequel could add to the story and perhaps it would be good enough to bring this to 4.