★★★★ out of 5 -- Rated: R -- Run time: 1 hour, 54 minutes
Director Sam Raimi has built an impressive list of credits featuring some very different films. From the “Spider-Man” series with Tobey Maguire to the Kevin Costner baseball film “For Love of the Game” to the Sharon Stone western: “The Quick and the Dead.”
But he first cut his teeth on some slightly twisted and violent action films like “The Evil Dead,” “Darkman” and “Army of Darkness.”
He returns to that arena with “Send Help,” a very clever (and bloody) look at a changing power dynamic between a horrible male boss and a female staffer.
Rachel McAdams (“The Notebook” and “Wedding Crashers”) stars as Linda, a hard-working, socially-awkward, and very underappreciated employee at a big consulting firm. Her world falls apart when a promised promotion is shot down by her new boss – an obnoxious, entitled member of the bro culture played by Dylan O’Brien (The “Maze Runner” movies and the “Teen Wolf” TV series).
He delights in insulting and humiliating Linda, but the tables begin to turn during a business trip to Thailand. In a well-staged and terrifying sequence, their private jet crashes into the ocean, stranding the two lone survivors on a remote tropical island.
The clever script by the writing team of Damian Shannon and Mark Swift (“Freddy vs. Jason” and the “Baywatch” film) has already revealed that Linda loves the TV show, “Survivor,” and that she even produced an audition tape seeking to become a contestant.
Now she is in her dream element and quickly gets to work, building a shelter, finding food and water and taking care of her injured boss.
She’s extremely knowledgeable when it comes to survival skills and is not the least bit squeamish when it comes to a blood-soaked face-off against the local wildlife.
The awkward, somewhat dowdy woman we see earlier in the film begins to thrive and actually glows in this new existence. Kudos to McAdams for pulling off her performance as a wonderful, kick-butt character.
Her boss, meanwhile, has major trouble adjusting to this changing dynamic and struggles to deal with it. O’Brien does an excellent job portraying a guy that you are not quite sure whether to trust or not. He could have been a cardboard, cliché-ridden character, but he manages to keep people guessing about his motives.
The film was primarily shot in Australia and Thailand, with the beautiful beach locations really enhancing the movie.
One of the many enjoyable aspects of “Send Help” is that there are multiple times in the film that you think you know where the plot is headed, but then the story takes an unexpected turn.
These twists do keep the audience on their toes, and that, along with some very dark humor, makes this Sam Raimi effort a very enjoyable movie-watching experience.
Just a heads up: the film is not for the squeamish and does contain a great deal of violence. But it all makes for a good ride that wraps up with an excellent ending.