Review: The Girl is in Trouble (2015)

[Mark R. Leeper]

THE GIRL IS IN TROUBLE
(a film review by Mark R. Leeper)

CAPSULE: The title tells us that Swedish femme fatale
Signe is in trouble, and in trouble she certainly is.
She has witnessed a man being killed and now is on the
run. The closest friend she can contact is the dude
she met at a party five days earlier and has ignored
since. She has seen a crime but does not know who
might be stalking her. Director Julius Onah gives us
a crime story that pays homage to film noir thrillers,
but he also works in a few light touches along with
the grim. The story is not profound and there are not
a lot of puzzle pieces to put together, but it holds
the viewer's attention and keeps him anxious to work
out the mystery. Rating: high +1 (-4 to +4) or 6/10

August (played by Christopher Short) is an immigrant from Nigeria
trying unsuccessfully to make it as a disk jockey in New York City.
He needs to find a job soon as he is flat broke and his landlord is
setting little ambushes for him. The night we meet him he gets a
phone call at 2:36 AM. Signe (Alicja Bachleda) is a girl he met at
a party, but then she never called him. Now suddenly she wants
urgently to get together with him five days later and in the middle
of the night. He remembers his horoscope said that change is
coming to his life, so he decides not to turn her down. Common
sense tells him he is being played. Common sense is right. Soon
he is involved in a situation involving murder, drugs, a missing
drug dealer with an avenging brother, fraudulent investments,
prostitution, a phone video of a murder, and a mysterious Swedish
damsel in distress.

August is trying to make sense of all he finds out, making himself
an unlikely and uncomfortable detective. Different people seem to
be stalking Signe including Angel (Wilmer Valderrama) who is
searching for his brother Jesus and a scary looking thug aptly
named Fixer played by Mike Starr. Starr, a popular character
actor, has an imposing stature and is frequently used as a henchman
or a thug in films like MILLER'S CROSSING. He is one of those
character actors the viewer recognizes immediately but never
remembers for long.

Bachleda is alluring as Signe, but her voice sounds nothing at all
like a Swedish accent. Director Julius Onah seems to have been
anxious to work into the plot as many different ethnicities as he
could manage. It goes with his short expository lump explaining a
short history of ethnic migrations to New York Cody. Jesse Spencer
plays Nicholas, the spoiled son of a Bernie-Madoff-like investment
swindler. Nicholas is supposed to be at least part Jewish, but has
no air of Jewishness about him except for him playing the violin.
And even that he does poorly.

THE GIRL IS IN TROUBLE is a spiritual descendent of film noir style
films. But at times it departs from its serious style for a few
moments of amusement when the director's tongue is planted firmly
in his cheek. Early on it introduces a large number of characters
who may partake of the plot, but the narrator reassures the
audience that this one and that one the viewer need not remember.
Onah digresses into a short exposition on when various ethnic
groups arrived in New York--again not really necessary for the
plot. He also seems to have some fun jumping the narrative forward
and backward in time.

It is nice to know that some vestige of film noir is not dead, and
even in the 21st century there are still running around femme
fatales waiting to seduce and double cross you. I rate THE GIRL IS
IN TROUBLE a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale or 6/10.

Film Credits: <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1706625/combined>

What others are saying:
<http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_girl_is_in_trouble_2012/>


Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 2015 Mark R. Leeper