RED ROVER – Review

Review by Stephen Tronicek

RED ROVER premieres On Demand May 12 from Indiecan Entertainment.

Red Rover is not a film about traveling to Mars. Instead, it is a film about a man named Damon (Kristian Bruun) who is living in the basement of his ex-girlfriend. Eventually, he meets Phoebe (Cara Gee), a fantasy woman, who pushes him out of his everyday routine by proposing he join the Mars project. 

Red Rover didn’t need to be about traveling to Mars.  When you’re working within the framework of the independent film, the budget simply doesn’t exist to create a larger film with a lot of VFX work. Unfortunately, Red Rover is just a horribly derivative version of a “man getting back his mojo” movie. 

The above-average aspects of the piece do show at least a little inventiveness, though. Shane Belcourt directs the film well and the actors are all in for the haphazard storyline. Brunn turns in a largely thankless performance that does its best to reconcile some of the cringy dialogue. On top of that, the concept of a major Mars mission being a transitional phase for somebody’s life isn’t a bad idea. The same goes for a pretty good set up and pay off of Damon’s metal detector search on the beach each day. At the moments when Damon chooses to change, the film actually comes alive. The problem is that often there’s not a choice to what Damon is doing. 

Red Rover often robs Damon of his own agency, while not giving Phoebe any valuable agency of her own. Phoebe exists within the narrative simply to change Damon. Any type of characterization given to her doesn’t rise above the typically adolescent fantasy of the girl who simply has only your interests in mind…and sings cute indie music, It’s a truly unfortunate trope that was long ago pushed to the point of parody. As mentioned above, the dialogue often reads as the cringey fantasy of someone hoping for Phoebe to show up, not something Phoebe would actually say. 

While not a complete loss, Red Rover is just another high concept romantic drama in a sea that can’t manage to transcend the common problem of character agency. There are some moments of interesting change, but they are not profound. They don’t ring true. They are as far away as Mars.