White Knuckle, Green Room!

Rating: 7/10 (8 April 2020)

In the tradition of unexpectedly good siege/survival films such as Assault on Precinct 13 and Straw Dogs comes Green Room from writer/director Jeremy Saulnier. It takes the typical victims being terrorized in a "cabin in the woods" and then cleverly keeps pulling the carpet out from under the expected generic tropes set-ups.
Instead of demons/serial killers doing the dirty work, we have a band of skinhead neo-nazis, led by of all people, Patrick Stewart, generally underplaying his role neatly and only occasionally displaying his full evil intent. And instead of your usual mixed bunch of unlikeable teenagers being set upon, Saulnier gives us the four members of a punk band, the Ain't Rights, travelling through the Pacific Northwest. Desperate for money, they take a gig, they would have preferred not to have done, at the neo-nazi bar, situated in a lonely forest venue. Before they can leave after their gig, they find themselves attacked by the skinheads after witnessing a murder in the club's green room. Pretty much totally out of their depth and completely unsure about what to do next, they barricade themselves in the room, whilst desperately hoping to come up with a solution to their predicament.
The major selling point of Green Room is that it definitely has an air of realism about the general scenario. None of the twists and turns that occur appear contrived. It's not spoiling to say that during the hours that follow the discovery of the murder, the band are joined by some resourceful allies, again occuring after a chain of logical happenings. The action and violence that we see occur isn't stylishly choreographed, but rather the sort of stuff we might imagine happening from opponents on both sides, unused to dealing out the rough stuff and then seeing the up-close results.
Green Room serves as a reminder of how much of a loss, we suffered due to the way too premature death of Anton Yelchin. As the quietly spoken sort of leader of the Ain't Rights, he gives us a completely different character from that of his best known and much loved Pavel Chekov in three Star Trek films of the latest franchise and in the process demonstrates he knows his way around a bass guitar.
Stewart and Yelchin get great backing from a veritable ensemble of a support cast with standouts for me being Imogen Poots as Amber, who proves to be extremely resourceful after throwing off her initial shell shock and Saulnier regular Macon Blair as Gabe, a club employee and Stewart's right hand man, who may not be quite so wedded to the cause as his boss.
Both a critical and commercial success, Green Room is a dynamic, occasionally darkly comic, unusual take on a popular film genre and thanks to a gritty no holds barred authenticity, proves to be thoroughly entertaining. Make sure you don't miss the Ain't Rights, if they happen to be performing around your neck of the woods.