VIPER CLUB is a drama about a heart-wrenching subject, the plight of families of journalists and others kidnapped by terrorists, a story told through the eyes of a tough ER nurse, played by Susan Sarandon, whose freelance journalist son has been kidnapped while working in Syria. It appears to have all the elements of a good thriller – a strong lead, timely subject, urgency to act, the frustration of dealing with a slow-moving official bureaucracy. It is a well-meaning film but unfortunately it is not a good film, despite heroic efforts by Sarandon to give it the depth and humanity it needs.
Sarandon is the best part of this film, as Helen the nurse caught in a mother’s worst nightmare. Her son Andy (Julian Morris) has been kidnapped while working as a freelancer in Syria. Because he is freelance, Andy has no media organization to help. The FBI has advised Helen to keep his disappearance a secret. At work, Helen is all steely strength and competence, helping train a new doctor and taking extra shifts. At home, she feels the absence of her grown son, whose choice to work in a war zone puzzles her. The film moves on two tracks, following Helen’s efforts to free her son and her work at the hospital, including caring for a little girl in a coma.
After waiting two months without a word she is becoming frustrated and alarmed at the lack of progress. The FBI tells her little but cautions her that if she pays ransom, she will be breaking the law. She goes to the State Department, which seems more interested in what the FBI is doing than helping free Andy. Since Andy is not military and he is not with a news organization, they regard him the same way as a tourist who decided to go somewhere risky.
In her frustration, she turns to an informal organization that helps find kidnapped journalists, known as the Viper Club. She meets with Charlottte (Edie Falco), a wealthy New Yorker whose son was rescued by the Viper Club through its back channels. For unknown reasons, Charlotte tells Helen she did not pay ransom for the return of her son, although we later learn she did.
That inexplicable detail is one of many in this frustratingly mishandled drama from director Maryam Keshavarz. It is never clear if Andy is Helen’s only child or if she raised him alone. Sarandon’s acting is excellent but the film looks terrible.
We learn little about Andy, mostly just a flashback to a conversation mother and son had about his commitment to covering war zones. Instead, we get repeated little shots of Andy as a child, a teen, and an adult, wordless snatches of memory or instances of him appearing where ever Helen is in the present. The technique is so overused, that they become irritating, seeming to be every few minutes, having the effect of undercutting the human drama and making the relatively short film feel longer.
Despite Sarandon’s good work, VIPER is a misfire that does not serve its worthy subject well.
RATING: 2 out of 5 stars
