 | MOVIE DETAILS • Name: Dashcam • Year: 2021 • Country: USA • Director: Christian Nilsson • Main cast: Eric Tabach, Larry Fessenden, Giorgia Whigham, Zachary Booth • Runtime: 88 minutes • Production company: TXE, Hood River Entertainment • TRAILER
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Dashcam (2021) has, in my opinion, all the ingredients a good spies thriller must have: A political cover-up that the protagonist must unravel, smart but yet not unreal investigations, and simplicity. Yes, simplicity, because nowadays we get bombed by so many thrillers where the car chases and the explosions take so much of the attention that we forget to focus on the important parts: the case and the development of the inquiries. Just think of Jason Bourne trying to solve who he is and why he has been framed in a small room with the only company of a computer and a cell phone instead of being chased through the entire planet. Does it sound boring or is it really calling your attention?
The writer and director Christian Nilsson makes a great job with his debut feature film creating a very tense film full of intrigue and more intense than many other films with millions of dollars spent in special effects. And the start point is so simple that it could happen to many of us. A journalist wannabe who is entering in the business being a news video editor gets delivered by accident a bunch of evidence of an ongoing case. And soon it all makes no sense, the evidence doesn’t match with what has been made public to the media. And the deeper he digs the dirty it all gets. People on the streets are talking about political conspiracies. Are they just a bunch of ignorants waving the flag of “all governments lie” without having any idea or evidence of what they are talking about? Or is this time for real?
Through an hour and a half, the director uses his ally and main actor Eric Tabach as the instrument for developing one of the most interesting thrillers I have seen in the last years. Christian Nilsson cites Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up (1966), Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation (1974), and Brian De Palma’s Blow Out (1981) as his influences, but I also see a lot of the previously noted Jason Bourne or the underrated Michael Mann’s Blackhat (2015) influences in the film. And perhaps also some of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954) due to the nature of the protagonist spending most of the movie figuring out what is going on sitting in front of a screen, another kind of window.
Very smartly written, edited, and directed, Dashcam (2021) is an excellent exercise of a psychological thriller, a movie where everything happens inside of the head of the main protagonist and we will never know if it all is real or not. Even the ending makes us believe one way, but yet delivers no evidence. The structure of the film is measured to the second, with a story that is growing in intensity without losing an apex of its simplicity, that simplicity where it resides its strength. The actors do a great job supporting their director, and the final product is solid flawless.
Director Christian Nilsson took advantage of producers approaching him to make the long-length version of his acclaimed previous short film Unsubscribe (2020), but, instead, he delivered a brand new idea where he put on the table all his favorite influences in the genres of crime and thriller building this original story. As it is said in the press notes, “Dashcam (2021) isn’t a pandemic film but it is very much born out of events we’ve seen over the last year—confusion, isolation, virtual gatherings, and disturbing video evidence of police brutality”. But it is also a big love letter to the genre.
Dashcam (2021) was the surprise movie last weekend at the Sitges Film Festivals, and the ones that waged for it didn’t get disappointed. it will also be part of the Fantasy FilmFest in Germany this October, and it is coming out on digital in Canada, the UK, and the USA on October 19, 2021. If I was you I would go check this one out.
RATE: 7/10
IMDB URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt13667516
