Chariot
“Chariot” is a comedic sci-fi mystery-thriller lacking in laughs, spectacle, mysteriousness or thrills.
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“Chariot” (available in select theaters and on VOD beginning Friday, April 15) isn’t without its charms, but as a whole it didn’t do much for me.
Thomas Mann (“Project X,” “Kong: Skull Island”) stars as Harrison Hardy. Harrison’s a young man who’s been plagued by the same dream over 5,000 times. The dream consists of a youthful Harrison watching his mother cook dinner. She asks him to go into his parent’s bedroom to ask his father, who’s watching a football game on television, whether he bought garlic at the grocery store.
Helping Harrison discern his dream and diagnosing whatever disorder he might be suffering from is Dr. Karn (John Malkovich, sporting the worst wig in cinematic history). Harrison moves into a decrepit, old apartment building in downtown Los Angeles (though the movie was shot in Little Rock, Ark. and contains clearly visible Arkansas license plates) called the Lafayette in order to be closer to Dr. Karn and more easily receive treatment.
It’s at the Lafayette that Harrison meets aspiring actress and avid meat aficionado Maria Deschaines (Rosa Salazar, she was the title character in Robert Rodriguez’s “Alita: Battle Angel”), her best friend Lauren Reitz and Lauren’s alternate personality, the cockney Oliver (Scout Taylor-Compton of last week’s “The Long Night” – review here), and obsessive zookeeper David Reece (former NFL tight end Vernon Davis). Harrison and Maria quickly fall into a relationship with one another. This displeases Dr. Karn, who enlists Lauren’s boss, the reincarnation of Western actor Rory Calhoun (late 1990s/early aughts teen heartthrob Shane West), to assist him in severing the burgeoning romance.
As written and directed by Adam Sigal (this is his third feature after 2016’s “When the Starlight Ends” and 2019’s “Stakeout”), “Chariot” is a comedic sci-fi mystery-thriller lacking in laughs, spectacle, mysteriousness or thrills. It’s mostly just weirdness for the sake of weirdness. Luckily for Sigal, he attached a talented cast to this mess. If it weren’t for these performers, the movie would feel entirely like a misguided student film as opposed to primarily like one. Mann is an appealing everyman. Salazar gives good manic pixie dream girl. Malkovich, who can be the hammiest of hams, hams it up BIG time. Taylor-Compton ain’t no James McAvoy (and Sigal’s writing of Lauren’s dissociative identity disorder makes M. Night Shyamalan’s “Split” and “Glass” seem downright sensitive by comparison), but she gives it the old college try and admirably maintains Oliver’s cockney accent. These folks elevate the anemic material at almost every turn.
“Chariot” is about reincarnation and love persisting through time and different persons. I’d love for it to be reincarnated as a better movie.