Four young punk rockers need cash to make it home to Washington D.C. from the Pacific Northwest. They get a gig at a remote venue that promises to pay $350. One thing leads to another and they find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time and are subsequently held hostage by a gang of neo-Nazis led by Patrick Stewart.
Yikes.
All they wanted was $350 for gas money back home to Washington D.C.; what they get is trapped. And dead. Mostly dead. The process by which “Green Room” escorts the unfortunate rockers from living to dead is, of course, the pleasure in this kind of thriller. Despite its clockwork regularity, “Green Room” does bring the chills, the thrills, the spills (of blood).
Patrick Stewart, you say? Let's get this out of the way:
He is great. In fact, “Green Room” is filled to the brim with great casting. Anton Yelchin is Pat, leader of the band; Sam (Alia Shawkat), Tad (David W. Thompson) and Tiger (Callum Turner) round out his band. Amber (Imogen Poots) is a quick ally, a fellow witness to the grisly murder that sends the situation spiraling out of control. In full control, however, is Stewart, playing the subdued neo-Nazi leader, Darcy. Stewart is the headline; the main reason to see “Green Room” is to watch this master thespian play a grizzled Nazi. He's worth the price of admission.
Writer-director Jeremy Saulnier ("Blue Ruin") is another headlining attraction, who manages to turn "Green Room" into, at its best, a distressing, nihilistic exercise. Unlike many films of its kind, the neo-Nazis do not set out to kill the kids. This isn't an issue of some stupid kids making a bad choice and walking into the maws of evil; it is complete random happenstance that lands them in their situation, and the neo-Nazis are just doing what hey can to "wipe the slate clean." Saulnier crafts great tension in the first half of the movie, while the rockers are trapped in the "green room" of the concert venue. None of these kids is an action hero; none really knows what to do. There is a palpable sense of impending doom. I was on the edge of my seat.
To Saulnier and company's credit, the neo-Nazis never feel cartoonish. Usually hostage/siege movies are crafted in such a way that the heroes have no choice but to fight back, having wholly entered the world of the baddies. But Darcy's gang aren't going around murdering people willy-nilly. They don't “control the town,” the cops don't like them. The extra feeling of hope — that the police might appear and save everyone — contributes to the overwhelming despair of the piece when they inevitably don't. It's much scarier to know help is out there.
Would it spoil the film to say that the last half falls into a more contrived genre space, and loses some of its steam? Don't they all? For what it's worth, “Green Room” is, for most of the runtime, taut and thrilling. If you want to feel bad in a good way, this one is for you.