Scott Derrickson’s The Gorge does well for itself upfront with its setup, with a top-tier mercenary named Levi (Miles Teller) accepting a mission to be the sole protector of a secluded mini-fortress in an unknown country, nestled at the edge of the titular gorge. The gist of the rules is that he must remain on watch for a single year, he’s to have no communication with the outside world aside from a monthly check-in from his higher-ups, he must eliminate anything that climbs out of the gorge with extreme prejudice, and there’s to be no contact with his counterpart on the other side of the gorge.
That last rule proves a bit difficult for Levi to follow when he finds out that the fortress on the other side is occupied by Drasa (Anya-Taylor Joy), an attractive Lithuanian assassin tasked with roughly the same mandate as him. Soon, the two are striking up a friendship over text—that is, by writing each other messages on dry-erase boards and notepads across scenes that recall some of the best bits from Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead remake.
The film, as written by Zach Dean, is at its most fascinating when it’s just about two people on the loneliest assignment in the world, stuck alone with their thoughts and traumas, and relieving the pressure in small, human ways. Teller and Joy are both effective at playing bundles of raw nerves trying to soothe each other, and the closer their characters become, the more harrowing it is when duty calls at the worst possible time. For a solid hour or so, the film is patient and tense, with just the right touches of levity and romance. Until, suddenly, it isn’t.
The patience is the first to go after The Gorge shifts into action-horror mode. The film evinces an effectively relaxed sense of dread when the story is above ground, but Dan Laustsen’s cinematography gets to cast an eerier spell once we see what’s actually at the bottom of the gorge. But this is still a horror film where frightening bioorganic mutants have come to rip people to shreds, and that feels like the least interesting place for it to have gone after the setup.
There’s a slower, more thoughtful, cerebral version of Derrickson’s film waiting to be made that trades easy thrills for reams of additional character work, discussions of government ideologies, more emotional friction to the romance, and less predictable terrors. But as it is, as anyone who’s been stuck in a dead-end relationship can tell you, knowing someone could do better doesn’t change being disappointed that this is who they are.
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