Dad’s swat team
ENCOUNTER
Cert 15 ★★★★
In cinemas now, on Amazon Prime from December 10
In 2017, film-maker Michael Pearce restored my faith in British cinema with Beast, a tightly plotted Jersey-set thriller that boasted star-making turns from Jessie Buckley and Johnny Flynn. Thankfully, he hasn’t got lost in a pile of US dollars with his well-earned follow up.
A visually arresting opening scene shows a meteor burning through the Earth’s atmosphere and smashing into a forest where the debris is ingested by bugs.
When an insect burrows into human flesh, the camera enters the bloodstream as microscopic creatures appear to gorge on human cells. As we watch former US marine Malik Khan (a bulked-up Riz Ahmed) spray himself with insect repellent in a scuzzy motel room, Pearce invites us to join the dots. It seems the fate of the human race will lie in the hands of this buff loner. But, first, Malik needs to save his family.
After a midnight raid on the Californian home of his sickly wife, Malik takes his estranged sons, 10-year-old Jay (Lucian-River Chauhan) and eight-year-old Bobby (Aditya Geddada), on a road trip to the supposed safety of an army base in Nevada.
Malik reckons that half of humanity is now infected by mind-controlling alien parasites. So, when they are pulled over by a traffic cop with bugs swirling around his eyeballs, we know he will have to rely on his military training.
But, gradually, Pearce shifts focus from Malik’s heroism to his increasingly worried elder son. He needs Jay to grow up fast for the sake of his younger brother.
But Jay begins to sense that it’s his dad who needs his protection.
After a tense opening hour, the suspense slackens as the sci-fi gives way to a familial psychodrama.
Young Chauhan is excellent as a boy grappling with his father’s vulnerability but it’s Ahmed as the unusually troubled action hero who keeps us hooked.
Half of humanity is now infected by mind controlling alien parasites