Simon Pegg Archives – CULTURE MIX

Review: ‘Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning,’ starring Tom Cruise

May 14, 2025

by Carla Hay

“Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning”

Directed by Christopher McQuarrie

Some language in French with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in various parts of the world, the action film “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” (the eighth movie in the “Mission: Impossible” movie series) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some black people, Asians, Latin people and Native Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: American rogue superspy Ethan Hunt and his international allies race against time to stop a massive artificial intelligence force called the Entity from destroying the world.

Culture Audience: “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, the “Mission: Impossible” franchise and action movies that are over-the-top spectacles.

Nick Offerman, Angela Bassett, Mark Gatiss and Janet McTeer in “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” (Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

“Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” is overstuffed, goes on for too long, and comes dangerously close to the ridiculousness of the “Fast & Furious” franchise. However, the engaging characters and superior stunts outweigh the movie’s flaws. It’s by no means the best “Mission: Impossible” movie in the series, but it’s certainly the one that expects viewers to think the hardest about a convoluted plot that doesn’t deserve overthinking.

Directed by Christopher McQuarrie, “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” (the eighth movie in the “Mission: Impossible” series was written by Erik Jendresen and McQuarrie. “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” had its world premiere in Tokyo and its European premiere at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. McQuarrie also directed and co-wrote 2015’s “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation,” 2018’s “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” and 2023’s “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One,” whose title was later shortened to “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning” after the movie underperformed at the box office. The “Mission: Impossible” movie series is inspired by the TV series “Mission: Impossible,” which was on the air from 1966 to 1973.

“Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” is essentially “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two,” but you don’t need to see “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” to understand “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.” That’s because “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” is filled with exposition dumps of characters explaining what happened in previous “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” and other previous “Mission: Impossible” movies, as well as over-explaining what they’re about to do in “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.”

One of the most unintentionally laughable things about “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” is how the characters take turns in their exposition-dump dialogues by each saying things with perfect timing, as if they know each other’s lines and never talk over each other or interrupt each other during these overly choreographed conversations. It never looks like real conversations, especially in the high-pressure situations that these characters experience. There are also several flashback montages for nostalgia’s sake and to inform viewers who might not have seen or who might have forgotten some key moments in previous “Mission: Impossible” movies.

At the end of “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One,” American rogue superspy Ethan Hunt (played by Tom Cruise)—an operative of the secret agency Impossible Missions Force (IMF)—escaped from with one of two keys that have the power to destroy a massive artificial intelligence villain called the Entity, which is intent on taking over the world. The Entity is not physically embodied in any one being because the Entity is a virtual enemy that can spread wherever and whenever it chooses. However, the biggest human enemy in the “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” and “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” is Gabriel (played by Esai Morales), an assassin liaison for the Entity.

“Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” begins with an outer-space galaxy image and a male voice intoning the “Mission: Impossible” movie motto that gets repeated multiple times throughout this film: “We live and die in the shadows of those we hold close and those we never meet.” The voice adds, “The world is changing. War is coming.”

The praise gets a little corny and starts to deify Ethan as a female voice thanks Ethan for hs service, as several scenes from previous “Mission: Impossible” movies are shown like a greatest-hits playlist. The voice adds: “Every personal sacrifice you made has brought us another sunrise,” she says. “And although you never followed orders, you never let us down.

It’s also explained in the beginning of the movie that every corner of cyberspace has been corrupted by the Entity, which has inspired a doomsday cult. These fanatics have infiltrated every level of law enforcement, government bureaucracy and the military. “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” doesn’t do a lot with this “worldwide cult” plot development, because most of the movie shows Ethan mostly hanging out or fighting against a small group of people, most of whom are familiar characters.

Ethan is under orders to surrender to the U.S. government and hand over the Entity key that Ethan has in his possession. Ethan as other plans. His first order of business in “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” is to a prison break of former Gabriel cohort Paris (played by Pom Klementieff), a French assassin who is currently in prison in Austria because of the events that happened in “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.”

This review won’t go into too many more details about what happens, but it’s enough to say that “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” has a lot of dazzling action scenes but the story doesn’t do much that’s surprising. Ethan is joined by Ethan is joined by his two most loyal sidekicks: IMF computer technician Luther Stickell (played by Ving Rhames) and IMF technology field agent Benji (played by Simon Pegg), who have opposite personalities. Luther is laid-back and cool. Benji is high-strung and nervous.

Also along for the ride are Paris and two other of Ethan’s enemies-turned-allies who first appeared in “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One”: arms dealer Alanna Mitsopolis (played by Vanessa Kirby); former U.S. intelligence agent Degas (played by Greg Tarzan Davis); and masterful thief Grace (played by Hayley Atwell), who has a mutual growing attraction to Ethan. Alanna is the daughter of illegal arms dealer Max Mitsopolis (played by Vanessa Redgrave), who died in 1996’s “Mission: Impossible,” the first film in the “Mission: Impossible” movie series. “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” reveals that another character in the movie has a parent who died in the first “Mission: Impossible'” movie.

Erika Sloane (played by Angela Bassett), who was the director of the CIA in “Mission: Impossible – Fallout,” is now the president of the United States in “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.” Field agent Jasper Briggs (played by Shea Whigham) also returns and continues to hunt Ethan. He has a much smaller role than he did in “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.”

Other government officials who are featured in the movie are U.S. Army General Sidney (played by Nick Offerman), who is chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; U.S. Secretary of Defense Serling (played Holt McCallany); Walters (played by Janet McTeer); CIA director Eugene Kittridge (played by Henry Czerny); U.S. Navy Admiral Neely (played by Hannah Waddingham); U.S. Navy Captain Bledsoe (played by Tramell Tillman); and National Security Agency chief Angstrom (played by Mark Gatiss). They mostly just stand around and worry about decisions they have to make because of Ethan’s actions.

“Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” has a lot of expected globetrotting, mostly in Europe, North America and Africa. (The movie was actually filmed in South Africa and England.) The trekking includes a stop in Alaska, where CIA analyst William Donloe (played by Rolf Saxon) and his wife Tapeesa (played by Lucy Tulugarjuk) play crucial roles in the story. William was previously seen in the first “Mission: Impossible” movie. It’s explained in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” what William been doing since then.

The expected fist fights, explosions and gun shootouts occur, but the two most impressive action sequences involve (1) a deep-sea dive to go inside a shipwrecked submarine and (2) a battle to reach Gabriel flying in a single-passenger plane. (These action sequences are glimpsed in the movie’s trailers.) The deep-sea sequence is marred only by unrealistic-looking actions where Ethan does certain things without an oxygen tank or pressure suit, which would definitely kill someone in real life in a deep-sea environment.

Cruise famously does many of his own stunts. But the visual effects in these fake-looking scenes don’t look convincing because they make Ethan look superhuman, which defeats the “Mission: Impossible” purpose of showing Ethan as a flawed human being. The filmmakers should’ve left it so Ethan could be a superhero without superpowers that go beyond human capacities.

And in case it wasn’t clear enough, even though it’s repeated enough times in the movie: It’s up to Ethan to save the world. And if he doesn’t save the world, as someone in the movie quips, it’s all Ethan’s fault. The elevating of Ethan to almost messianic levels becomes a running joke in the movie. The concept of Ethan being a superhero is obvious and doesn’t even need to be said out loud. However, it’s good to see that the movie is in on the joke and doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Cruise and the rest of the cast members are serviceable in their roles. But there’s sort of a cold disconnect in how most of the characters don’t mention the human stakes of saving their loved ones in this possible apocalypse. The only hints that any of these characters have lives outside of their work are brief glimpses of Erika showing affection and concern for her unnamed adult son (played by Kwabena Ansan), who’s in the U.S. military. William and Tapeesa are the only couple shown in the movie.

One of the drawbacks of making the chief villain an abstract virtual enigma instead of something tangible: It removes the possibility of having a villain with a unique personality. Human villain Gabriel is not in the movie for very long, considering the 169-minute runtime. Although there’s nothing wrong with Morales’ performance, Gabriel is an underdeveloped character and comes across as an inferior imitation of a villain in a James Bond movie.

Does anyone with knowledge of the movie business really believe that “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” is the last “Mission: Impossible” movie? No. “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” is not a great movie, but it’s good enough in delivering what fans expect. And what people can expect is for this franchise to continue in one way or another.

Paramount Pictures will release “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” in U.S. cinemas on May 23, 2025.

Review: ‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One,’ starring Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby and Henry Czerny

July 5, 2023

by Carla Hay

“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One”

Directed by Christopher McQuarrie

Some language in Italian and French with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place from various parts of the world, the action film “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans, Latinos and Asians) who are connected in some way with government operations or criminal activities.

Culture Clash: IMF (International Mission Force) rogue agent Ethan Hunt is once again on a mission to save the world from deadly villains.

Culture Audience: Besides appealing the obvious target audience of “Mission: Impossible” fans, “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of Tom Cruise and spy thrillers with death-defying action stunts.

Pom Klementieff in “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” (Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

By now, most movie fans know that the “Mission: Impossible” movie series, starring Tom Cruise as IMF rogue agent Ethan Hunt, will have a lot of amazing stunts and action sequences. Cruise famously does his own principal stunts for these films. The “Mission: Impossible” movie series (based on the TV series of the same name) began in 1996. Instead of slowing down with these movies, Cruise seems determined to do even more outrageous stunts. In “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One,” the stakes get even higher when Ethan and all the main characters face the challenge of an entity that can create false images and alter people’s perceptions of reality.

As already shown in the movie’s trailer, Cruise’s biggest stunt in the film is driving custom-made Honda CRF 250 off of Norway’s Helsetkopen mountain, where he fell 4,000 feet into a ravine before opening his parachute about 500 feet from the ground. There are more stunts (some using obvious visual effects) involving planes, trains and automobiles. The movie also introduces a few intriguing new characters who will be appearing in more than one “Mission: Impossible” movie.

Directed by Chistopher McQuarrie, “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” is the seventh film in the “Mission: Impossible” movie series and the third consecutive “Mission: Impossible” film that McQuarrie has directed, following 2015’s “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation” and 2018’s “Mission: Impossible – Fallout.” Cruise and McQuarrie are the producers of “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One,” which was written by McQuarrie and Erik Jendresen. It’s the same writing, directing and producing team behind “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two,” which is set for release in 2024.

“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” is the most ambitious of the “Mission: Impossible” movie series so far but in some ways is also the most ridiculous. In trying so hard to outdo its predecessors, the movie gets into cartoonish territory when characters don’t get any injuries in crashes and explosions that would kill or maim most people in real life. Some of the plot also gets too convoluted. Despite these flaws, what a thrill ride it is. This action-packed and suspenseful film mostly earns its total running time of 156 minutes, even though “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” still could’ve benefited from tighter film editing. (For example, the movie’s opening credits don’t happen until 28 minutes into the film.)

“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” opens with a Russian submarine getting blown up after getting hit with a torpedo. The submarine’s video monitors and other computer systems were hacked by a mysterious entity that can create illusions to confuse the submarine’s occupants. These illusions caught the occupants off guard, which led to the torpedo destroying the submarine and everyone inside.

This all-powerful hacking tool is essentially on a computer flash drive, which is called a key. It should come as no surprise that every major terrorist group and every major governmental superpower is looking for this key, which is being sold to the highest bidder. Ethan works for a secretive government operation called International Mission Force (IMF), which gives him a new task in each “Mission: Impossible” movie. In “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” Ethan and his team have been tasked with finding the key before it gets into the wrong hands.

Ethan agrees to accept this mission, but he disagrees with the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, whose last name is Denlinger (played by Cary Elwes), who is also the head of a mysterious spy group called The Community. Denlinger (who is based in Washington, D.C.) thinks the U.S. government should be able to control this entity. Ethan thinks that the entity should be destroyed. Denlinger doesn’t know that IMF exists until he meets Ethan.

For this mission, Ethan is once again joined by his two trusty sidekicks who are computer technology experts and hackers: Luther Stickell (played by Ving Rhames), who is calm and logical, is Ethan’s oldest friend. Luther’s nicknames are Phinneas Freak and The Net Ranger. Benji Dunn (played by Simon Pegg), who is jumpy and neurotic, often follows orders from Luther.

Returning to the “Mission: Impossible” franchise are mercenary Ilsa Faust (played by Rebecca Ferguson), who has complicated relationship with Ethan; Eugene Kittridge (played by Henry Czerny), who was in 1996’s “Mission: Impossible” movie and who is now the director of the CIA; and the morally ambiguous Alanna Mitsopolis (played by Vanessa Kirby), also known as The White Widow. There’s a very memorable sequence on a train that involves Alanna/The White Widow.

During this globetrotting hunt, Ethan and his team go to various places, including the Arabian Desert, Abu Dhabi, Amsterdam, Rome and the Austrian Alps. They are being hunted by operatives from the U.S. government agency Clandestine Services. A Clandestine Services operative named Briggs (played by Shea Whigham) is leading this hunt. Briggs is a gruff taskmaster who likes to bend the rules, while his relatively new subordinate Degas (played by Greg Tarzan Davis) is very by-the-book and wants to follow the established protocol.

The movie’s chief villain is a mysterious agitator named Gabriel (played by Esai Morales), who has his ruthless sidekick Paris (played by Pom Klementieff) do a lot of his dirty work. Ethan and Gabriel share a past that has to do with a woman named Marie (played by Mariela Garriga), with this shared past explaining some of Gabriel’s motivations. Paris is the one who is most often seen trying to kill Ethan and a cunning thief named Grace (played by Hayley Atwell), who becomes Ethan’s reluctant and often untrustworthy accomplice in this race to get possession of the key.

One of the ways that “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” stands apart from so many other action films is that it doesn’t play into tired stereotypes of having a principal cast of people who mostly under the age of 40. Likewise, “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” also defies that action movie stereotype of having just one leading actress (usually someone’s love interest in the movie) among a slew of male leading actors. In “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One,” there are four strong women who have prominent roles in the movie.

Klementieff is a standout among “Mission: Impossible” villains. Her menacing Paris character is in stark contrast to the sweet-natured outer-space alien Mantis that Klementieff played in Marvel Studios’ superhero “Guardians of the Galaxy” blockbusters. In many ways, Paris outshines Gabriel, since Gabriel is more of a psychological villain than someone who can barrel through streets in a high-speed car chases or cause mayhem with an arsenal of weapons.

Atwell also holds her own in the action scenes, although some viewers might find Grace’s intentionally duplicitous personality a little annoying. Rhames and Pegg continue their sometimes-amusing rapport as Luther and Benji. Cruise does some of his best stunt work ever in the movie. If stunt work had a category at the Academy Awards, then Cruise would be a certain nominee if not winner for “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.” It’s a breathtaking thriller that delivers beyond expectations for action scenes and spy intrigue. However, the “Mission: Impossible” filmmakers need to remember to have some of these action scenes more grounded in the reality of human frailties and the realistic consequences of being in these death-defying situations.

Paramount Pictures will release “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” in U.S. cinemas on July 12, 2023, with sneak previews on July 10, 2023.

Review: ‘The Disappearance of Toby Blackwood,’ starring Joe Ahern, Luke Dalton, Doug Mellard, Dana DeLorenzo, Natasha Hall and Todd Giebenhain

December 22, 2022

by Carla Hay

“The Disappearance of Toby Blackwood”

Directed by Joe Ahern

Culture Representation: Taking place somewhere on the West Coast of the United States in 2020, the comedy film “The Disappearance of Toby Blackwood” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans and Latinos) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: During the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, a man decides to distract himself by searching for a former schoolmate who has become a semi-famous “doomsday” conspiracy theorist and who has disappeared during the pandemic.

Culture Audience: “The Disappearance of Toby Blackwood” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching boring and idiotic comedies that use a deadly pandemic for cheap and unfunny jokes.

Cast members in “The Disappearance of Toby Blackwood,” Pictured in top row, from left to right: Joe Ahern, Ashley Spillers and Arjay Smith. Pictured in bottom row, from left to right: Annie Karstens, Eddie Alfano and Grant Harvey. (Photo courtesy of Freestyle Digital Media)

“The Disappearance of Toby Blackwood” is yet another unimaginative and repetitive movie with a COVID-19 theme. Viewers are stuck with the vapid and obnoxious characters, just like these characters are stuck quarantining and use it as an excuse to be stupid. This poorly made comedy is only 74 minutes long, but it feels like longer. There’s barely enough of a story to fill a short film, which is why it’s a chore to watch all of “The Disappearance of Toby Blackwood.”

“The Disappearance of Toby Blackwood” is an independently financed film that you can tell was made by frequently unemployed actors who decided to give themselves jobs by making a terrible movie. It explains why the director and co-writers of this dreadful dud have cast themselves as stars in the movie. “The Disappearance of Toby Blackwood” director Joe Ahern gets the most screen time as the film’s protagonist: a lackluster, middle-aged sad sack named Wes Crowley. Ahern co-wrote the movie’s atrocious screenplay with Doug Mellard, who plays the completely irritating Toby Blackwood.

Watching the misguided Ahern and Mellard as these two cretinous characters is like watching the polar opposite reasons why actors fail in their roles. Ahern is very listless and flat, while Mellard over-acts. “The Disappearance of Toby Blackwood” also commits one of the worst sins of a movie with a COVID-19 pandemic lockdown theme: It’s mostly a series of very insipid and increasingly annoying phone calls and videoconference chats.

The gist of this very limp story (which takes place somewhere on the West Coast of the U.S. in 2020) is that Wes is bored at home while quarantining during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, so he and a few friends decide to find out what happened to Wes’ former schoolmate Toby, who has recently disappeared. Wes and Toby haven’t seen each other in about 20 years, but Wes knows that Toby has become a semi-famous “doomsday” conspiracy theorist. It’s mentioned early on in the film that Toby has 200,000 Twitter followers and 130,000 YouTube subscribers.

There’s a subplot about Wes being bitter because his wife Courtney (played by Natasha Hall) has left him and taken their dog Iggy Pup with her. Courtney also served divorce papers to Wes, in case it wasn’t clear that their marriage is over. Courtney left the dog bowl behind, and Wes whines in an early scene in the movie: “I don’t have the heart to throw it away, so I just stare at it all day.”

Throughout the movie, Wes does video chats with five of his closest friends: Luke Dalton (played by Grant Harvey), Carrie (played by Annie Karstens), Wendy (played by Ashley Spillers), Mike (played by Eddie Alfano) and Keith (played by Arjay Smith). Luke is the loudmouth jerk of the group, so you know he’s going to get the most screen time. Keith is the only one in this group who comes close to sounding like he’s the voice of reason, so course he gets the least screen time out of these five pals.

Luke is actually the one who comes up with the idea to look for Toby. Luke persuades a reluctant Wes to start an investigation, and eventually Wes becomes more interested in finding out what happened to Toby. It should be noted that Luke and Wes also drink a lot of beer during their investigation shenanigans, which might explain why their judgment is impaired but doesn’t explain why this movie is so horrendous.

“The Disappearance of Toby Blackwood” wastes a lot of time showing Luke and Wes talking to various people (usually Toby’s mentally ill followers), who have various theories about why Toby has gone missing. None of the theories is even remotely close to being amusing. “The Disappearance of Toby Blackwood” is filled with a lot of drab dialogue, such as this comment that Wes says that’s supposed to make viewers laugh: “Between my divorce, the quarantine and these bizarre conspiracy theories, I think I’ve aged 10 years in three days.”

A few fairly well-known actors make cameos as these weirdo followers of Toby. The cast members making quick appearances in this embarrassing movie include Simon Pegg, as a paranoid fan named Garth Arthur, who rambles on about alternate realities. Other actors portraying fans of Toby include Lamorne Morris as Gerald Meacham and Luis Guzmán as Chester Mendoza, who both have babbling, forgettable lines of dialogue. All it proves is that the filmmakers called in some favors to get these well-established actors to be in this awful movie.

Why hasn’t anyone contacted the police to report Toby missing? It’s explained early on in the movie that Wes and Luke don’t want to contact the police because Toby has enough guns (many probably illegal) to arm a militia, and they don’t want Toby to get in trouble with law enforcement. Why hasn’t anyone contacted Toby’s family members? Wes and Luke don’t want to alarm these relatives because Toby hasn’t officially been reported missing, and no one knows yet if Toby voluntarily disappeared, or if there was foul play involved.

“The Disappearance of Toby Blackwood” is just a tedious slog of these witless conversations. A low point is a segment showing terribly stereotypical depictions of Italian Americans: The brother characters of Vinny Balducci (played by Joseph Russo) and Paul Balducci (played by Jeremy Luke), who are in their 30s, talk about a grudge involving a murder and veal scallopini (don’t ask), as if they’re Super Mario Bros. wannabe mafia types. Other not-funny-at-all segments show a urine filtration device salesperson named Larry the Urine Guy (played by Rick Gomez) and an unhinged priest named Father Delgado (played by Rudy Mungaray).

A conspiracy fanatic named Mandy Prescott (played by Dana DeLorenzo), who says that she is Toby’s girlfriend, insists that Toby went to meet Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates at Area 51, because Toby thinks Gates created the COVID-19 pandemic so that Gates could put microchips in COVID vaccines. The movie also over-uses a so-called “joke” that some of Toby’s fans, including one named Gilbert Muldoon (played by Todd Giebenhain), think Area 51 is really located underneath the Denver International Airport. Don’t expect there to be any hidden cleverness to this “joke.” There is none.

Interspersed with these stale and vacuous conversations are scenes showing some of Toby’s conspiracy theory videos, so this movie’s viewers can see what type of garbage content he’s been spewing out into the world. There’s nothing original about what Toby says or does when he rants about government spying and “end of the world” predictions. “The Disappearance of Toby Blackwood” presents everything as a weak and uninteresting parody of real-life conspiracy theorists. All of the footage with Toby will just make viewers wish that Toby would stay permanently missing so that he stays far away from humanity. If you care about being entertained, you’re better off staying far away from “The Disappearance of Toby Blackwood.”

Freestyle Digital Media released “The Disappearance of Toby Blackwood” on digital and VOD on December 20, 2022.

2019 Tribeca Film Festival movie review: ‘Lost Transmissions’

April 29, 2019

by Carla Hay

“Lost Transmissions”

Directed by Katharine O’Brien

World premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on April 28, 2019.

It’s not easy to do a romantic drama about two people with mental-health issues. The story has to handle the issues in a respectful and believable manner in order not to be too offensive. But the romance in the story has to be appealing too—and that’s where “Lost Transmissions” falls short. Unfortunately, the two lead actors in the movie—Juno Temple and Simon Pegg—are frustratingly mismatched in portraying a couple who have a tumultuous relationship while they navigate their careers in the Los Angeles music industry. Temple and Pegg are very talented in other movies, but watching them trying to create chemistry together that doesn’t exist in “Lost Transmissions” is almost painful to watch.

When we first meet aspiring singer/songwriter Hannah (played by Temple) and music producer Theo Ross (played by Pegg), it’s at a house party where he’s the jolly center of attention, playing the piano, and she’s a little bit on the shy side. Theo is able to bring Hannah out of her shell a little bit by encouraging her to sing while he plays. They exchange phone numbers, and the next day, Theo calls her and invites Hannah over to his home studio, where she’s very impressed by his unique collection of musical instruments.

During their date, Hannah confides in Theo and tells him that she’s on anti-depressants, and she once tried to commit suicide by driving into a tree. Most people don’t share this kind of information on a first date, so it’s the first sign that Hannah is one of those people who’s addicted to personal chaos. Hannah says, “Sometimes I feel stuck in glue, and I feel like I might never move again.” Theo has a sympathetic ear, and he hints that he also has a troubled past, but he doesn’t go into too many details.

Theo offers to help Hannah with her music career, so he puts her in touch with a music executive named Darron (played by Robert Schwartzman), who hires Hannah to write songs for a young pop star named Dana Lee (played in a hilarious cameo by Alexandra Daddario). Dana is a social-media-conscious nymphette with multicolored hair (think Ariana Grande meets Billie Eilish at Coachella) who has more natural chemistry with Hannah than Theo does. Hannah and Dana’s budding friendship, which is so entertaining to watch, unfortunately has very little screen time in this movie. It makes you wish that a movie was made about Hannah and Dana instead of Hannah and Theo.

British actress Temple has made a career out of playing pouty, American women who find it difficult to be happy, so she’s definitely in her comfort zone here as an actress. The problem is that she’s paired with the wrong actor—and it’s not just because Pegg is known for playing mostly comedic characters. Together, Pegg and Temple are just not convincing as a couple in love. At times, watching this movie feels like watching awkward rehearsals of a play.

Theo and Hannah continue to date, and they think that they’re in love, even though it’s obvious that they’re wrong for each other. It turns out that Theo has even darker problems than Hannah’s depression issues. On the surface, he seems to have it all together—he’s a respected musician who makes a comfortable living as a producer of indie rock acts. But in reality, Theo is actually schizophrenic—and it doesn’t help that around the time that he’s met Hannah, he’s stopped taking his medication. Theo’s mental illness is also exacerbated because he’s had a long history of taking psychedelic drugs such as LSD or mushrooms—a habit that he goes back to during his relationship with Hannah.

When he’s off his medication, there’s nothing to like about Theo. He has angry outbursts, he’s selfish, he’s unreliable, and (this is where the title of the movie comes into play) when he plays static very loud on the radio, he thinks he can hear messages in the transmissions. It’s clear that Theo is headed for a major nervous breakdown, but Hannah—like so many of the type of co-dependent women who go on TV shows like “Dr. Phil” to talk about their toxic relationships—thinks she can “fix” Theo, or at least help nurse him back to health. According to “Lost Transmissions” writer/director Katharine O’Brien, the movie is inspired by real-life experiences that she went through with a male friend who was schizophrenic. Let’s hope that she handled it better than Hannah does in this movie.

When Theo’s mental deterioration leads him to be evicted from his home, none of his longtime, close friends want to take him in, because they say that they’re too busy with other commitments. (Red flags right there.) Hannah, who hasn’t been dating Theo for very long, ignores these warning signs and agrees to let Theo move in with her instead of immediately getting him professional help. Making that kind of bad decision in the name of love might be understandable if Theo treated Hannah better, but the sweet-natured Theo that Hannah met at the party is long gone.

Hannah doesn’t deserve much sympathy here because she makes excuses for Theo’s horrific behavior. There’s a scene in the movie that is an example of this destructive enabling: Theo, Hannah and one of Theo’s pregnant friends are passengers in a car when Theo, in a fit of rage, lunges at the driver and tries to get the driver to run off the road, which could have caused a serious accident. Eventually, the driver takes control of the car, and they pull over on the side of the road. The pregnant woman is understandably furious, and tells Theo that he’s “dangerous.” Hannah protests and says that Theo is just “scared.”

When Theo’s behavior gets worse, and Hannah finally decides that he needs to be in a professional facility, Theo inevitably ends up in a psych ward. But Hannah (who’s obviously not qualified to give medical advice to Theo) continues to be part of the problem when she tells Theo that he can “outsmart” his schizophrenia. Then the movie veers into a subplot where Hannah tries to get Theo to go back to his native London and make amends with his estranged father. At this point in the story, you’ve stopped caring about this badly mismatched couple, and you can’t wait for the movie to be over so that you don’t have to ever see them again. If the person who inspired the Theo character had this kind of relationship in real life, let’s hope that they’ve broken up and stayed away from each other, for the sake of everyone’s sanity.

UPDATE: Gravitas Ventures will release “Lost Transmissions” in select U.S. cinemas and on VOD on March 13, 2020.