Zero – Film Review
by Hugh Maguire

Director – Jean Luc Herbulot
Writers – Jean Luc Herbulot, Hus Miller
Stars – Gary Dourdan, Moran Rosenblatt, Annabelle Lengronne

Even if it does not quite deliver, there is much to admire in this tightly paced thriller.  It offers much that Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning could have benefited from, notably in terms of duration and pace.   Two Americans, as different as chalk and cheese, and yet meant to be representing two sides of the one American coin (brains and brawn), find themselves victims of a time-determined series of life-threatening tasks in the slums of Dakar, Senegal.  Knocked out some way or other, they awaken to find themselves wearing fully wired-up suicide vests with timers.  To avoid imminent death, they have also been provided with earpieces through which instructions are given on the various destructive tasks which may allow their freedom and escape. This works cleverly and provides a sense of urgency and panic as the viewer too realises the pressure under which they operate, the scale and improbability of the tasks with which they are being charged, and the relentless rush on the clock.  It takes us back to the simple logic of the original Mission: Impossible TV series (1966-73) and that urgency implicit in a tape self-destructing in a matter of minutes. This sense of panic is compounded, or enhanced, by the agitation of the camera work, which owes so much to the pace of dynamic match cuts – sometimes effective, sometimes exhausting.

For all of this, there are competing narrative forces, which ultimately weaken the whole.  The main protagonists have back stories, which is fine.  Who doesn’t?   But these, admittedly brief, flashbacks do little to enhance the narrative.  They go nowhere and tell us precious little. There is also the voice of some off-screen moral authority  (William Dafoe) giving a running commentary on the social inequality and political corruption of Senegal, which is all too obvious from the shots throughout and the implication that all of the inequities stem from American policies and interference in the region.  Victims of a hidden agitator, the concept seems to be that the worsening series of destructive events will be blamed on interfering Americans and that this will hasten the fall of the regime.  Given that the focus implies a relationship to real events, it is difficult to distinguish what might actually relate to the real-life political situation.

Either way, for something taut and tense, there is much to admire and enjoy.

Zero is in cinemas now and on digital platforms 11 August