Title: Tyrel
MPAA Rating: Not Yet Rated
Director: Sebastián Silva
Starring: Jason Mitchell, Caleb Landry Jones, Christopher Abbott
Runtime: 1 hr 26 mins

What It Is: When he’s invited to spend the weekend with his friend Johnny (Abbott), Tyler (Mitchell) is a little apprehensive. His apprehension stems from being the only person of color hanging around for the weekend. As the weekend goes on and more and more dudes show up (without a brother in sight) his paranoia only increases. But is there actually anything for Tyler or Tyrel as he’s often called to worry about? Only the weekend will tell.

What We Think: There are portions of this where you can clearly see Silva had an idea…and then forgot it once he turned the cameras on. Mitchell is a charismatic on-camera presence, usually. Here Silva’s script is just not enough to showcase that. At this point, I’m of the belief that Silva doesn’t really understand how to tell the story he wants to tell. He nails what he’s TRYING to do but never quite gets it there. A poor man’s Get Out is a place many will look to. Silva had a similar approach in his last film Nasty Baby in that he had a different message but as you can read he failed to convey it.

Our Grade: C-, There was so much potential here but it is unfortunately squandered. With that so to did the films hope of a strong recommendation from me. On a side note just because you present the film in a way that makes you SEEM “woke” or features a storyline that comes off as such DOES NOT make you progressive or put you in the same league as Jordan Peele’s contemporary masterpiece. With that note, if you miss this one I think you’ll be alright.