Review: ‘Detained’ keeps the twists comin’

Felipe Mucci’s Detained twists the knife when you least expect it. Fashioned as a thriller, the crime/drama tempts the audience into its dark, delicious web and keeps ’em guessing until the fiery finale. With each breath-squeezing turn, the film works overtime to glue you to the TV screen, as you take stabs at its much deeper layers that incrementally unfurl right before your eyes. Patience is required, but the payoff is earned.

After a night out on the town, sipping wine at her favorite watering hole, Rebecca (Abbie Cornish) awakens to find herself detained in a local precinct. Undergoing renovations, the police station is worse for wear, mirroring Rebecca’s semi-conscious state. Battered and bruised, she doesn’t recall much about the night before, only that she bought an expensive drink for a handsome gentleman. What comes next is a blur. During the interrogation, the lead detectives Avery (Laz Alonso) and Moon (Moon Bloodgood) claim Rebecca side-swiped a cyclist, whose body was discovered not far from Rebecca’s vehicle in the highway medium.

But Rebecca grows increasingly suspicious. As the night progresses, she questions the detectives’ role in the so-called investigation and learns that the police precinct might not be all it’s cracked up to be. With a strong lead performance from Cornish, she keeps the threads braided together and only unravels them when absolutely necessary. Crisp and clean cinematography, courtesy of DP Dennis Zanatta, lures you in and you stay for the twists, turns, and big reveals. Even when you might guess where it’s going next, it’s still worth the price of admission.

Mucci impressively understands spacial awareness and the importance of character relationships, also owed to sturdy performances from the likes of The Greatest Hits actor Justin Min (as Rebecca’s attorney Isaac) and Silas Weir Mitchell (as the quirky, scruffy drug addict Sullivan). Where the film also excels is with bursts of violence that jolt you awake. Blood-curdling and gunfire characterize a film that makes you question what is actually happening.

Detained might not be a reinvention of the wheel or even a total homerun, but it supplies just enough gripping dialogue and revelations to hook you into place. Felipe Mucci gives the ensemble plenty of leash to play, delight, and command their roles – with Min and Mitchell performing their hearts out and allowing a bit of humor to slide into the empty holes. The cast bounces off one another with nary a weak link in the bunch. Each piece fits together snuggly. Detained would crumble apart underneath its agonizing weight without such a tightly bound cast.

The film tip-toes along genre conventions, sometimes to its detriment – yet when the script flips onto its head, you’re forced to piece together the puzzle and figure out who’s lying to who. Detained works best going in totally blind (thus this review keeps much of the plot under wraps). The viewer must go along for the thrilling ride and enjoy every single swerve and unexpected stomach-turning drop, or else you risk the film losing part of its charm.

Detained is out now on VOD via Quiver Distribution.

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