Movie Review: Girl (2020)

Genre: Thriller

Director: Chad Faust

Starring: Bella Thorne, Mickey Rourke, Chad Faust

Running Time: 92 minutes

Synopsis: A young woman (Bella Thorne), referred to only as Girl, heads into a small rural community armed with a hatchet. She intends to kill her estranged father, who abandoned the family when Girl she was a child, leaving her mother with a bad back and financially destitute. Once she locates her father's house, Girl is shocked to find him recently murdered by someone else. She tangles with the local Sheriff (Mickey Rourke) and his ironically nicknamed half-brother Charmer (Chad Faust), and starts to uncover sordid family secrets.

What Work Well: Director, writer, and co-star Chad Faust delivers a neatly packaged story of revenge, revelation, and hidden loot. The damp, decrepit, and isolated setting provides an impressively depressing grey aesthetic, perfect for challenging Girl's deeply held convictions. Bella Thorne delivers a moody and dark performance, while Mickey Rourke (oily) and director Faust (smiley) make a great pair of brotherly villains, fine specimens from generations of in-breeding.

What Does Not Work Well: Budget limitations are on display in a sparse cast (the town's population appears to be in the single digits), and some of the chase scenes are awkwardly mounted. The final familial confrontation is rather listless.

Conclusion: The ambience is ramshackle, but the menace carries an edge. 



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