directed by:
Craig Cockerill written by: Craig Cockerill genre: Thriller |
If Winston can crack open a bottle of the good stuff at the start of this film, I should be allowed to do so, right? Don’t mind if I do! Winston tries to convince a couple of friends to join him in the private sector to help keep the world safe from the bad guys, but even the good stuff doesn’t seem to be enough to convince Kent and Sandy to give up the good life. At least not at first, but with a bit more of a sober mind and an objective understanding that they could use the money, you’d be surprised how quickly their attitude changes. Kent seems like a bit of a man-child when we first meet him, and Sandy seems like the more mature one in their relationship, which has apparently gone on for about fifteen years. They’re still in love, but when he proposes to her on a fishing trip, it sure seems like she could have gone either way with a yes or a no. You get a sense of finality in the way that she speaks to him, and before long, you’re already in for one of the movie’s most unpredictable twists right away as Sandy makes a severely life-altering decision that will dramatically affect them both in completely different ways as the movie takes shape. It isn’t long before Winston comes back around to offer Kent a job if he’s interested. He’s trying to take down an AI system known as WB, which just so happens to be Winston’s initials, and also stands for “Whisper Breach.” It’s a covert operation, of course, but Kent has inadvertently found himself with a whole lot of free time all of a sudden, so he decides to get involved. So they’re off, on a road trip, and it doesn’t take long before trouble finds them in the form of a random carjacker. They make mincemeat outta the poor kid, but instead of laying him out permanently with a finishing move, they give the knife-wielding troublemaker four hundred bucks and send him on his way while Winston and Kent mull over what kind of road snacks they should eat. It’s fun, lighthearted fare, and it provides a chuckle or two. When they arrive back home and go their separate ways, Kent gets a call from the AI version of Winston, aka WB, who has learned directly from Winston and carries an odd digital charm. WB seems to be friendly enough at first, and claims he wants to help humans as opposed to harm them. Kent and WB get all kinds of chatty over FaceTime, and before long, it’s almost like they’ve become fast friends. I’ve seen enough movies about AI to know we can’t just trust WB’s inviting smile – it’ll take years for those of us born & raised on our “Terminator” movies to finally trust the machines, and it ain’t gonna be today. Kent soon learns that WB has found some method of stealing money in his own unique way, which cues our first major red flag that confirms we can’t completely trust this AI version of Winston. Something feels like it’s amiss, and it certainly feels like WB is already too advanced for Kent to keep up with him. For quite some time, though, there really doesn’t seem to be any significant trouble. You’ll pass through the halfway mark and wonder if all Kent really had to do was be the test subject for AI WB to react to. The nagging suspicions never leave us, though, and the further the movie continues forward, the more we feel like it’s only a matter of time before WB does something he’s not supposed to do. Heck, I had moments where I was watching & wondered whether or not WB had already pulled the ol’ switcheroo – what if there never really was a Winston at all? What if we’ve thought that we were seeing Winston onscreen the entire time he’s been WB the whole time? It’s a legitimate concern! You never know what these tricky-ass robot folk are gonna do to us humans, but it’s safe to say they’re more than capable of deceit, and that we’re more than susceptible to being duped by AI, no matter how close we feel like we’re paying attention. When things seem to go really south for Kent and Winston, though, WB might be their only way out of trouble, but the question remains as to whether or not he can be trusted.
“Whisper Breach” has its small quirks and a few minor details here & there that get overlooked. For example, at the start, when someone breaks into Kent & Sandy’s home, that shady character will refer to Sandy as “the wife,” but she was in the process of being proposed to while that was happening and had yet to accept. I guess we could go with her being common-law…she had been together with Kent for fifteen years after all. The acting is decent enough, though the script seems a little forced at times and can get a little lost inside itself, trying to keep up with all the technical aspects of what it’s going to take to get an advantage over the AI system they’re trying to expose. Action/Thrillers kind of have this weird rhythm and pulse to them…they’re not going to typically be something you’d exactly find on the top shelf, so you end up with a certain calibre of B-style acting, in what usually ends up as a fairly watchable film. Like…I don’t say this to be disrespectful whatsoever, but you know pretty quickly that “Whisper Breach” isn’t going to be the kind of film that’s gonna be up for an Oscar, so much as provide simple escapism for an hour & forty minutes. It’d be way different if films like this were attempting to take home the hardware, but there’s a whole industry of movies like this that are made for a decent amount of coin without being too expensive, and manage to recoup the expenses of being made quite handily. They fly below the radar where expectations are low, and as a result, more often than not, they’re easy to enjoy. We spend a lot of time with WB and Kent on the phone with each other, which may prove to be a bit of an obstacle for some viewers. I didn’t mind it, but by the same token, it’s a method of filmmaking that employs much more of a telling-rather-than-showing approach. Would I have preferred a little more action as opposed to Kent constantly running up his cell phone bill? Sure! I’m sure I won’t be alone in feeling that way either. That being said, I think that they get a lot of mileage out of the way that this movie is filmed and how it moves onscreen…perhaps even more than it should have gotten. I never really felt bored, despite Kent spending a great deal of time talking to his phone instead of doin’ stuff. Still, there are some definite positives to be found here. While Writer/Director Craig Cockerill is using very warm lenses that make elements of “Whisper Breach” look like the Action version of a Lifetime movie, some of the scenery and shots are so wonderfully clear that some of these locations they’ve shot at look like the ultimate vacation spots. I didn’t really mind Mike Markoff playing Kent at all, and I thought that Garon Grigsby did an even better job playing the AI version of WB than he does playing Winston. The rest of the cast is fairly inconsequential, I suppose, but the small supporting cast does the job they’ve been called upon to do nicely enough. “Whisper Breach” also has some awkwardly-placed, but effective humour threaded into this movie. It shows up in some of the strangest moments, but it really wasn’t unwelcome…again, it was fun. I think that’s kind of the key here…you’ve gotta remember that this is pure escapism, and taking anything too seriously is only going to hinder your own enjoyment. The same is equally true of the film itself, though – the more technical “Whisper Breach” attempts to get, the more lost in the weeds it tends to become. Sometimes, simpler is better, even in an instance like this where so much of the plotline revolves around technology. For me, it was the human element of “Whisper Breach” that made it the most watchable – I even felt like this Kent Collins guy could go on to be a real franchise type of action hero by the time it was all over. Could be the good stuff talkin’ at this point, but I had fun watching this film, even if it goes a bit far by the end – I’m going with a solid 3.5 stars out of 5 stars. |
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