Claustrophobic and Gripping

Rating: 7/10 (12 March 2016)

Trust me, this IS a review for 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE, it will just take me awhile to get to there.
I loved Steven Spielberg's 2005 version of WAR OF THE WORLDS (starring Tom Cruise). It embued an atmosphere of foreboding and claustrophobia while giving us an alien invasion story.
I also love Lenny Abrahamson's recent Academy Award nominated film ROOM (the film in which Brie Larson deservedly won the Best Actress Oscar) which told the tale of a mother and son held hostage.
Why am I speaking of these two films? Because if you combine these two films you get 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE - a film in the "Cloverfield family of films" (don't call it a sequel).
For those of you who don't remember, CLOVERFIELD was JJ Abrams 2008 "found footage" alien invasion flick. As Abrams describes it, 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE is a different ride in the CLOVERFIELD AMUSEMENT PARK - and what a different ride it is!
10 CLOVERFIELD LANE tells the story of Michelle (a very good Mary Elizabeth Winstead) who wakes up in a bunker after a car crash. She has been brought there by Howard (and even better John Goodman). Did he save her? Is she being held hostage? Is his story of alien invasion just a ruse? Is Howard sane? All of these questions need to be answered in the course of this film, and it's the journey to find the answers that makes this film so enjoyable - as well as the action packed last 20 minutes.
It is a claustrophobic film, for it spends it's first hour and 20 minutes inside Howard's bunker and we are relying on the interplay between Howard and Michelle to propel this film forward. There is a 3rd person in the bunker, Emit (John Gallagher, Jr). Unfortunately for him (and the actor playing him), this character acts mostly as a foil for the other two so never really has the gravitas of Winstead and Goodman.
But the interplay between the two leads is very, very good. Winstead has never been better than she is here as Michelle, the surrogate for us audience members trying to make sense of what is being told her. But this movie really belongs to Goodman. He is a commanding presence who commands the screen every time he is on it and moves from gentle and happy to intense and dangerous at a moment's notice. Is he crazy or is he just trying to keep everyone alive? A truly good actor keeps us guessing and Goodman is a truly good actor.
The direction by relative novice director Dan Trachtenberg is surprising good and smooth, keeping us on the edge of our seats - and unsure - throughout this movie.
The "make or break" of whether you buy into this movie happens in the last 20 minutes, and I won't spoil it here, but, I went with it and really enjoyed my time at 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE.
7 (out of 10) stars and you can take that to the Bank (of Marquis)