Matthew Dessem

It’s rich territory, and Etziony and Hanuka manage to make both the film’s action sequences and its interviews compelling and interesting. But Call For Help drags in its second half, particularly in an interlude back in the States that makes the same point over and over again.

The nudges and winks in Dumbo about Disney’s predatory practices are an invitation from filmmaker to audience to share a knowing chuckle over the essential soullessness of the entire enterprise.

The makeup is really all there is to look at—visually speaking, the film is aggressively uninteresting. But beyond all Dead Snow 2’s flaws, it’s important not to lose sight of the fact that it has undead soldiers in Soviet and Nazi uniforms straight-up swinging pickaxes at each other.

The movie is a mishmash of riveting action and drama pasted together with obligatory plot-moving that is so phoned-in that it approaches parody.

The film is ultimately shackled to an ultra-conventional structure and form—workaholic learns about the important things in life through the power of wanly scored montages—and a good central performance from Mary Elizabeth Winstead isn’t enough to save it.

Lapa’s story is in the disconnect between the words and the visuals, or the visuals and what we know to be true, or even the words from one moment to the next.

The Riot Club was clearly made by people who understand that a film that revels in conspicuous consumption doesn’t magically become anti-greed by hastily grafting on a moral. But instead, they’ve made a polemic that suddenly, unconvincingly insists it’s a character study.