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Friday, January 17, 2020

MARVEL-LESS MARVISTA: Friend Request (2020)

Director: Roger M. Bobb
Writer(s): Angela Burt-Murray
Starring: Vicky Jeudy, Tosin Morohunfola, Marc Grapey, and Renelle Nicole


Holy hell, who would have seen this coming? I mean, I guess it was bound to happen at some point, coming from a studio that seems to release boatloads of movies every week, but it's still shocking: MarVista has accidentally produced a good movie! And, true to their form, they slap the most banal name on it that they could muster: Friend Request (also the name of another by-the-numbers “thriller” from 2016). Well, as usual, the “good” here is relative to other movies in their canon, as it’s still little more than a basic thriller, but it’s executed exceptionally well.

Malik is a successful lawyer who has aspirations of becoming a DA. He’s also married to his beautiful wife, Michelle, with whom they share a child, and who also has dreams of her own: she wants to open a catering business (it’s always a catering business). Things seem to be going well for the family—he’s on the fast track to getting a promotion that can put him another step closer to his ultimate goal; she gets her first catering job and blows people away—when a message comes through on Friendergram (yes, that’s what it’s really called). It’s from Rayna, Malik's high school sweetheart, who up and left him when he refused to follow her to college, and hasn't contacted him since.

Although it’s been years, Malik has never forgotten about her, and is happy to learn she will be at an upcoming reunion of some sort with her husband, as he will be with his wife. Well, a sudden catering job eliminates Michelle from the picture, at which point Rayna randomly informs him, through Friendergram, that her husband can’t make it. Left to battle his wills all alone—but feeling like he still has to go since he's receiving an award (what reunion gives out awards?)--the two pick up where their relationship left off, spending the night catching up, before he follows her to her hotel room. He apparently has every intention of leaving, but ends waking up in her hotel room the following morning, with no recollection of what went down. One thing's for certain: it ain't good.

Malik tries being honest with Rayna upfront, informing her that he wants no part of a life with her, but Rayna won’t take no for an answer, and before long, she’s firmly embedding herself into his life…any way she can (remember Michelle’s catering business…?) And before long, the consequences of his actions have far-reaching implications beyond anything he ever would have expected (remember that job promotion he’s virtually guaranteed…?) as the cunniving femme fatale knows how to play dirty...

There are some poor writing/character decisions (if he didn't plan to sleep with her, why did he go all the way to her apartment to begin with?), and many of the plot points are well-tread in similar stalking tales (especially Rayna's overly seductive behavior), but the occasional mistake is more than covered by surprisingly B+/A- list acting, and a trail of (mostly) believable twists and turns that caught us off guard more than once, leading up to an ending that refreshingly isn’t clearly foreshadowed at any point.

And while that mysterious ending isn’t great—it’s a little too clean and happy for my tastes—there’s no denying that this is one of Marvista’s finest 90 minutes, and a brief glimpse of what the studio is capable of when all of the pieces accidentally fall into place.

STRAY OBSERVATIONS
  • This is one of MarVista's first releases of 2020, and it sets an impossibly high bar for the rest of the year. Are they finally growing up? Or have they reached their peak two weeks into the new year? Only time will tell....
  • Seriously, how did they land this cast?
  • They still haven't changed their trailer tactics: the one below reveals the entire movie in two-and-a-half minutes. Don't watch it if you plan on seeing it!
  • This is the same writing/directing team from Holiday Heist, which we also found to be above-average. Keep it up, Bobb-Burt Murray!
RATING: 8.5/10

TRAILER (careful, it reveals everything)


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