“Weapons†holds your interest far longer than it should.
Set in a quiet community, it tracks the disappearance of 17 students, all from one teacher’s classroom. One student remains but 17 are, where?
Quickly, parents suspect the teacher (Julia Garner), but why would a teacher want to kidnap 17 pre-teens?
Rather than grill those parents, authorities let this linger for quite some time until many people forget it even happened.
By focusing on various “interested†parties, director Zach Cregger tells individual stories, letting audience members piece together the clues. It’s a brilliant way of approaching a thriller that doesn’t necessarily have a satisfying resolution.
Through narration (narration that’s difficult to hear, thanks to the soft-spoken child who delivers it), we get the sense that there’s more here than just abduction. Cregger moves on to a parent (Josh Brolin), a cop (Alden Ehrenreich), a truant (Austin Abrams), the principal (Benedict Wong), the remaining boy (Cary Christopher) and his aunt (Amy Madigan). Each story adds to the equation and then we get a better picture and wonder how everyone is going to get out of this.
People are also reading…
“Weapons,†as a result, is aptly named. Parts are shocking; parts misfire. But the real conclusion is why aren’t investigators drilling down on the people who might have more information?
Brolin finds the connection —Ìýsomething someone else could have done with a big map, a yardstick and a pencil. When those clues intersect, he and the teacher move in for the truth.
While moments go a bit too far (some attacks are more zombie-ish than others), the hunt for answers is inspiring. Ehrenreich is quite good as a man with connectionsÌý— and burdens. He’s straddling a couple of worlds and isn’t afraid to hunt down a homeless man who could be responsible.
When Madigan comes to school (looking like Bette Davis in one of her later roles), she’s a fascinating character who knows how to shift focus.
Because that narrator says it’s a true story, it’s likely someone in the theater will start Googling cases that sound suspiciously similar.
Don’t be duped. “Weapons†has its own power and could easily prompt a sequel given the loose ends that are left hanging. It’s a nerve-wracking film that accomplishes what it set out to do.
But it also could give you a couple of restless nights trying to figure out what happened to cause this.
It’s a chiller that benefits from others in a theater screaming when you do.
