'Misdirection' Review
- Connor Petrey
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
Release Date: 02/10/26 [VOD]
Genre: Thriller.
MPAA: Not Rated.
Distributor: Cineverse Entertainment.
The Verdict: A Must-See
From the same man behind the absolutely bonkers Nicholas Cage horror, Willy’s Wonderland comes a contained thriller that radiates inquiry as the question looms as to why this is their mark for the night.
Olga Kurylenko and Oliver Trevena play Sara and Jason, two high end robbers, who chose their final mark before retiring from their life of crime. Their mark being David Blume (Frank Grillo), a lawyer that unfortunately came from at the wrong time.
If you’re like myself and you watch a film the entire way through and then log it on Letterboxd, you might be surprised by my shock when I saw the average rating for this film. It makes me believe that I saw an entirely different Misdirection. It’s truly a puzzling thing but here’s why I think it deserves maybe better…
This is a patient and interesting thriller that is placed over the span of a few hours of one particular night. It’s a night where anything can happen and things can be thrown off track extremely quickly. Kurylenko and Trevena are described as a couple in the premise and while they seem like long time partners in literal crime I didn’t feel the allure of romance. Frank Grillo is playing a man who is seemingly at the wrong place at the wrong time, with one side pointing at this being a coincidence and the other being it was a planned attack. Grillo’s Blume is restrained for a majority of the picture, but his calm demeanor allows for a second glance at who exactly this man is.
To be clear, the poster I originally saw for the film makes it seem like a generic action film, so I went in with those kinds of expectations and maybe that’s what helped. Comparatively to director Kevin Lewis’ other features this is the most competent and focused effort to date, with a calming blue tint surrounding the interior of the home while the characters bicker back and forth about what to do next.
It requires patience and while not everything is laid out over the course of the 87 minutes, you get enough of the vibes to understand who these people are. Any criticism to the performances clearly doesn’t understand the genuine attempt of replicating a true partnership with no need to always be overly affectionate and instead be a cooperative pair that always leans on one another. The best advice I can give is to understand this is NOT an action film, it has no action in it and instead a psychological thriller about the consequences of your actions.
