One of Tribeca Film Festival’s highlights this year was “Detour,” a suspenseful neo-noir thriller deliciously saturated in drugs and alcohol. The central character, Harper (heartthrob Tye Sheridan) is stepson to alcoholic no-goodnik Vincent, played by Stephen Moyer of “True Blood.”
Harper blames the lying, cheating Vincent for putting his mom in a coma. While she lies in a hospital bed fighting for her life, Harper drowns his pain in alcohol. Wasted, he shoots his mouth off to the wrong dude: tattooed sociopath Johnny Ray, played by Emory Cohen (co-star of the Best Picture Oscar-winner, “Brooklyn”). Johnny Ray offers to whack Vincent for $20,000 dollars. In his drunken haze, Harper says yes to the violent thuggery. In the hungover and sobering light of day, Harper decides to back out. The problem is Johnny Ray won’t let Harper renege on their financial agreement and vows to go through with the murder.
Kudos to British writer and director Christopher Smith who gave us “Black Death, starring Sean Bean and Eddie Redmayne. In “Detour,” Smith uses split-screen to go back and forth in time and it works. No easy feat. Smith also wrote the film’s screenplay and deserves much credit for his spot-on casting. In addition to Sheridan and Cohen, Smith cast Bel Powley (“Diary of a Teenager Girl”) as the femme fatale. She rocks it in this clever and engaging tale.
