The Box

Despite the popular opinion that The Box would be writer/director Richard Kelly's safe commercial sell-out film after producing two consecutive divisive cult gems (Donnie Darko and Southland Tales), the film actually fits very snugly within the emerging Kelly oeuvre. It's as weird or weirder than either of his previous films and despite a $30 million price tag and a trio of movie stars (Cameron Diaz, James Marsden, and Frank Langella) Box is exactly the weird little movie with overtones of apocalypse and science/religion slippage that Kelly might have produced working on a shoe string budget with an unfamiliar cast.

While the outcome is 100% Kelly, it's still a bit of a blah film. The most somber of his works, The Box clunks along somewhat groggily at times unwilling to spill narrative secrets yet unable to remain gripping in the face of ambiguity. The basic story (a couple is provided with a button by a mysterious stranger which, if pushed, will end the life of someone they do not know and reward them with $1 million) lasts somewhere around 30 minutes and every moment after that is another in which Kelly keeps the wheels turning but always with the faintest hint of desperation.

The film is bona fide B material, and Kelly may have wanted it that way. Despite moral implications and a few very well written speeches, The Box lives up to its "Twilight Zone" roots as a freak out paranoia fable that's good fun but no masterpiece. There are refreshingly old-fashioned elements to the story's suspense. It approaches horror from the realm of a drama rather than from a place of slasher exploitation. In the end, there's not a bit which is out of place. It's a clearly conceived vision from Kelly which is implausible and utterly bizarre but very comfortable at being exactly what it is, no more and no less. A home run, grade A film this is not but it is a solid, enjoyable thriller that will ironically end up being yet another Kelly cult fave.

Grade: B