Speak No Evil (2024)

[Eric Prime]

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[filmlover]

I saw this last weekend, and while I never saw the Danish movie this was based on (apparently, the biggest change comes from the vastly different third act), I found it to be a surprisingly effective little thriller in the 80s/90s vein that provides plenty of tension but also some effective commentary about how people tend to brush off (or just choose to ignore) an endless number of obvious red flags until it's too late, no matter how awkward or uncomfortable they get. Most of the credit belongs to the actors, led by another eerily unhinged turn from James McAvoy: few working actors today are able to go from "charming dad" one minute to "ruthless psychopath" the next as effortlessly as he can. Mackenzie Davis and Scoot McNairy are also solid as the couple whose family ends up the unlucky prey. It takes a while to truly get going, but once it does, this becomes one of the better examples of an effective Hollywood-ification of a foreign language film out there. B+