Jeremy Saulnier Does it Again

Rating: 9/10 (16 August 2016)

Green Room is full of visceral thrills, gritty violence, and real characters forced into situations where they have to do despicable things. And to be quite honest, that's absolutely terrifying to watch for 90 minutes.
Jeremy Saulnier is back directing after his brilliant, Blue Ruin, which unfortunately no one saw. His job on Green Room is just as impressive, if not more. While the former is a much more personal story about one man on a revenge mission, Green Room covers a band who is accidentally thrust into a life or death situation at a skinhead bar after they come across a horrible crime. Both are extremely disturbing takes on violence, I found Green Room to have a few more thrills and ideas being explored.
Joining Saulnier is the late-great Anton Yelchin, Joe Cole (from Peaky Blinders fame), Imogen Poots, Alia Shawkat, Callum Turner, and Patrick Stewart. Stewart is as terrifying as I've ever seen him as he plays the diabolical bar owner who takes matters into his own hands. It's difficult to watch Charles Xavier do the things he does to innocent band members, but with Saulnier's direction, it works.
But I think the band's innocence may be what I found to be most compelling about this story. They aren't a clean cut or crime free group of young-adults, they have their own shortcomings as well. Of course, they aren't as horrible as the skinheads who spend time at the neo-nazi level of bad, but they aren't completely innocent either. Saulnier paints them as inexperienced and terrified which gives the action scenes more weight.
It's not for everyone as the violence is more brutal than something you would find in a Scorsese film, but it's one of the most impressive thrillers of 2016 with creativity and grittiness that is up there with the best of them.
+Performances are grounded with realism
+Saulnier's relentless direction
+Shocking
9.0/10