Downrange (2017) Review

“Downrange” Theatrical Poster

Director: Ryuhei Kitamura
Cast: Kelly Connaire, Stephanie Pearson, Rod Hernandez, Anthony Kirlew, Alexa Yeames, Jason Tobias, Aion Boyd, Eric Matuschek, Ikumi Yoshimatsu
Running Time: 90 min. 

By Kelly Warner

Ryuhei Kitamura is a director I keep tabs on because he interests me. He has this weird balancing act where he teeters back and forth between almost greatness and absolute garbage – sometimes, in his most well-known films, you get a bit of both. 2000’s Versus was this renegade breath of fresh air in Asian cinema, a gonzo mix of martial arts and Sam Raimi, and I feel like we’ve been waiting for the renegade spirit to return in full ever since. Alive was too scattershot, Azumi’s enjoyable but too mainstream to show off Kitamura’s wild side, I personally have no love for Sky High, and Aragami… actually, Aragami is pretty badass, I highly recommend that one. After the failure of Godzilla: Final Wars — the big budget 50th anniversary project in which Toho planned to send Godzilla off to (temporary) retirement on a high note — Kitamura went to Hollywood. His first English-language film, The Midnight Meat Train, is considered a cult classic today, but the studio that released it was apparently ashamed of it and dumped the movie straight to cheap theatres instead of putting it in regular movie theatres. So, while we mostly think highly of the director’s American debut today (I quite like it), the fumbled release didn’t do much for his career. Kitamura has been bouncing back and forth between America and Japan since then (most recently, Lupin the 3rd in Japan and the Luke Evans horror movie No One Lives in America). He is a famous director still best known for his early success and his kaiju-sized stumble that has fans (of which I guess I consider myself to be) still hoping to see something cool and special from him again. Well, sad to say, we gotta keep waiting, because Downrange ain’t it.

Co-written by Kitamura and Joey O’Bryan (Fulltime Killer), Downrange is a lean, mean, single location horror movie about a group of young people who are pinned down by a sniper in the middle of nowhere. The kids are on their way back home when their rear tire blows, sending them to the side of the road. It’s strange how many horror movies popped into my head watching these college kids get out of their SUV to check on the flat tire. If horror movies about adults tend to feature homebuying as extra anxiety, then horror movies about young adults sure do like to terrorize vacations. The young people are casually chatting about plans and places they need to be while the girls struggle to find a decent phone signal so they can call for a tow and the boys and doing their damnedest to act useful by changing the tire. It’s actually a long time of not much happening. One of the girls discovers a cross on the side of the road, likely the sign of fatal crash from the past, but this is never addressed again. During this time we learn a bit about the character backstories and, much to this horror fan’s surprise, none of the kids are assholes, not even the jock. So, that’s something.

I was expecting Kitamura to break the monotony of hanging out on the side of the road at any moment with a bullet interrupting someone mid-sentence. But it takes a very long time for someone’s brains to hit the pavement and by then, oh God, it felt like sweet relief. The kids quickly realize there’s a hidden gunman (shooting with a silencer at first) and they take cover behind the truck, but not before two of their party take mortal gunshot wounds. Most the rest of the movie plays out with the kids in cover, ducking bullets and trying to come up with a plan for survival. They use a cell phone’s camera to pinpoint the sniper’s position in a tree across the road. One girl, a self-described ‘Army brat,’ takes it upon herself to lead the others with her knowledge of weaponry, but they have no real means for striking back. Downrange is a survival thriller with a horror movie’s sensibilities and all of our protagonists are little more than victims waiting to happen

It’s rather bold to make a horror movie about gun violence in this day and age. Guns in movies are more often made to appear as problem solvers and props for our heroes to look cool holding in slow-motion. Guns in real life are responsible for horrors that the movies rarely touch on. So, I’m not opposed to Kitamura’s film being a horror movie about a gunman. Yes, it plays exploitational and showing brains fly seems to be the director’s primary motivator in making the film, but still: there is room for horror movies about guns instead of knives. I also thought it interesting how the one African American youth is cut off from the rest of the group while they plot their escape. He tries shouting for updates on what they’re going to do and begs them to come to his aid, while they largely ignore him and whisper amongst themselves.

The unfortunate thing is that Downrange doesn’t have many tricks in its bag. It’s extreme gore and mean-spirited ruthlessness and little more. The setup seems ripe for suspense but I found it sorely lacking. Perhaps sensing that his script isn’t doing enough for the movie’s forward momentum, Kitamura throws every bizarre camera move he’s learned into the movie, making for something unique to look at anyway.

The acting is subpar. Each actor will have a good moment and then their next line reading will sound grating and strange. It doesn’t help much that the script asks the actors to do some ridiculous things. At one point, realizing that she is missing her sister’s birthday party, a girl begins singing Happy Birthday to the absent relative. Then the others join in. I think they were going for the idea that they’re all exhausted and just talking nonsense, but it plays very silly. I did like the way they depicted the killer, however. He never speaks a word and we never get a clear look at his face. My favorite moment in the film features the shooter eating beef jerky while watching the kids through his rifle scope; it’s a subtle visual detail of a man at rest while he sheds blood and it’s the creepiest thing in the film.

In the later moments of the film, things get outrageous with extreme car crashes and a steadily rising body count. Downrange’s cold-bloodedness is occasionally clever, though not enough for me to recommend it to others. I much preferred the very similar Doug Liman film, The Wall, which saw two soldiers huddled behind cover while an enemy sniper taunts them over the radio. That film lacks the horror elements but it has the tension that Downrange is missing. On paper, Downrange reads like a timely, particularly American nightmare of a horror film, but it’s so one-note it’s boring.

Kelly Warner’s Rating: 4/10