Movie Review: The Rental

While horror movies that predate The Rental may have tended to focus on a central idea and then stick on that one solid concept throughout, this film offers twists and turns that do not necessarily all end up being good choices. Although there is a solid film hidden somewhere in this often-cluttered thriller that tries to be all things to everyone, it would probably have been better off had it simply stuck to one-story tract early on instead of veering to explore as many unrelated genre tropes as it ultimately does.

Everything starts off relatively benign when brothers Charlie (Dan Stevens) and Josh (Jeremy Allen White) take Charlie’s wife, Michelle (Alison Brie), and Josh’s girlfriend, Mina (Sheila Vand), to an oceanside house they have rented for the weekend to celebrate a relatively successful business deal that Charlie and Mina have just secured. Even after they begin to suspect that their host (Toby Huss) may be secretly watching them, the two couples do not appear to get too upset by the curious events unfolding around them. Unfortunately, that is precisely when things go from bad to worse and they find themselves fighting for their lives to simply make it through the night.

The minimal cast suits the story well and all of the actors serve their characters as best they can with what they are given. There are a few welcome surprises as none of the players readily fall into the typical character clichés of the genre (or at least the genre the film seems to favor for most of its running time), nor does the script once it gets passed a relatively sluggish middle act and things pick up in terms of the onscreen action.

Dan Stevens and Alison Brie in “The Rental.”

Director Dave Franco has created a relatively entertaining thriller for his feature debut (he also co-wrote the screenplay and boasts one of the film’s six producer credits). Unfortunately, like this workload, there may be just a bit too much going on in the film to allow it to be the slick, economical work that it so desperately wants to be. In essence, there are a lot of excellent ideas at play here and Franco’s use of the camera in the action/stalking scenes shows particular promise, but every time a decent idea or concept is introduced, it is discarded to explore the next twist or clever character nuance. With a story like this, sometimes simple can prove far more effective.

The tragedy of The Rental is that it does, in fact, finish with a clever and fiendish flourish that suggests Franco may indeed have a knack for directing this kind of film but, again, there is just too much going on here to be effective in any substantial way. Ultimately, The Rental may be destined to be best served as just that should you crave a relatively passable thriller that contains a modicum of tension and horror.

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Mike Tyrkus

Editor in Chief at CinemaNerdz.com

An independent filmmaker, co-writer and director of over a dozen short films, the Editor in Chief of CinemaNerdz.com has spent much of the last three decades as a writer and editor specializing in biographical and critical reference sources in literature and the cinema, beginning in February 1991 reviewing films for his college newspaper. He was a member of the Detroit Film Critics Society, as well as the group's webmaster and one-time President for over a decade until the group ceased to exist. His contributions to film criticism can be found in Magill's Cinema Annual, VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever (of which he was the editor for nearly a decade until it too ceased to exist), the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, and the St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia (on which he collaborated with editor Andrew Sarris). He has also appeared on the television program Critic LEE Speaking alongside Lee Thomas of FOX2 and Adam Graham, of The Detroit News. He currently lives in the Detroit area with his wife and their dogs.

@miketyrkus

Mike Tyrkus

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