Two elite sharpshooters-turned-assassins are hired separately for a secret mission to guard either side of a gorge that contains a mysterious threat in remote, secret location. On one side of the gorge is ex-Marine Levi (Miles Teller), hired by the U.S. Army, and on the other is Lithuanian assassin Drasa (Anya Taylor-Joy), hired by the Russians, in a secret agreement between the West and the East that has persisted since the early years of the Cold War. This unlikely agreement was made to contain a threat so deadly that both sides want it confined to this remote gorge, and this decades-long arrangement is so secret, even the U.S. Presidents were unaware of it. Each year, countries in the West and nations in the East send a new guard to man the tower on their side of the gorge. Those solitary guards patrol the heavily-weaponized edge of the gorge on their side, to make sure whatever is down there, stays down there. The guard on each side will be alone in their towers for a year, with only brief monthly radio contact with their employers. They are forbidden to have contact with each other.
In director Scott Derrickson’s dark sci-fi action thriller, we meet Drasa first, initially as she successfully kills a political target thought untouchable and then back in Lithuania, to visit her ex-KGB father Erikas (William Houston). Drasa and her father are very close, but her father now is dying of cancer. Facing the prospect of a long, painful illness, he tells her he will end his life on a certain date, Valentine’s Day, if he’s still alive. His death will sever Drasa’s one emotional support in the world, so she is understandably distraught.
We first meet Levi when he is summoned to report to Fort Bragg, where he meets with Bartholomew (Sigourney Weaver), who offers him this lonely year-long assignment, after determining he has no close ties that will notice he is missing.
Levi is put on a plane and drugged, so he has no idea where he is or how long he was in the air. A helicopter drops him at a remote, snowy mountain location near a border, with a map to travel the few kilometers to cross it. He has no idea where he is and little about the mission. Over the border, he meets up with the man he is replacing, J.D. (Sope Dirisu), a chatty British fellow who is very happy to have some human contact again. Levi has a manual that briefs him on the job, and gets a quick tour from J.D. before he goes off to his pick-up point.
That Levi and his counterpart across the gorge aren’t supposed to communicate made sense in the Cold War, but it makes less sense now. Anyway, it doesn’t last, with a rule-breaker Drasa using a big drawing pad to write messages to Levi. When he writes back to remind her of the rule, she replies that it’s her birthday and she’s going to do what she wants. The location of the gorge is cloaked so how are they going to know.
Thus starts their cross-gorge chats and budding relationship that follows. But it doesn’t take long before the mysterious threat contained so long in the gorge raises its ugly, gnarly head, and tries to climb out of the gorge. Lots of ugly, gnarly heads, actually.
The gorge turns out the be filled with strange looking zombie-like creatures, dubbed Hollow Men, who look like they merged with dead trees, a nice visual effect. The Hollow Men tag for them is a reference to a T.S. Elliot poem, and there are similar classical poetry references sprinkled throughout, which is a refreshing, unexpected touch in what is basically a sci-fi action adventure, with a romance thrown in.
Scott Derrickson does a nice job with the direction, keeping everything moving a good clip and keeping us focused on the characters instead of the script’s flaws. The direction and acting do a lot to compensate for the script’s logic flaws, although the film’s basic premise is intriguing.
Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy are very good together, with a natural chemistry as their characters bouncing quips off each other in a playful who-is-the-better shot one-upmanship competition. There is plenty of romantic chemistry too, so that when the confrontation with the things in the gorge heats up, as you know it will, they are ready to work as a team.
Another strength is the music, provided by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and nice moody, dark, atmospheric cinematography by Dan Laustsen. The sets and exterior shots, in Norway, all look great and the mystery in the gorge is original enough to be intriguing and full of possibilities.
Unfortunately, the script is kind of under-cooked, and something about the film feels like it was originally intended as a series but was hastily re-fashioned into a movie instead. It has more than a few puzzling missteps, like why would they need top assassins to patrol this heavily-weaponized gorge edge? What Levi and Drasa discover about the gorge is an intriguing yet the film doesn’t fully exploit its potential. There are other puzzlers. Levi and Drasa are well-matched as sharpshooters and skilled assassins yet it is always Drasa who loses things or leaves them behind, to create plot problems, or who stumbles into things and needs to be rescued, a sign of lazy writing. The action sequences are exciting and the effects are good but what gets them into those situations isn’t always the most original plot device.
However, the on-screen magic between Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy, plus Scott Derrickson’s perfectly-paced direction, keeping things focused on action and the central characters more than on those flaws, in a nice bit of cinematic sleigh of hand.
Overall, THE GORGE is an entertaining, fast-paced sci-action flick with an appealing couple at the center and plenty of action, plus enough of an original idea that it could have had a big screen release. As it is, you will have to go to your small screen to enjoy Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy trading quips and battling these woody zombies. For popcorn fun, you could do much worse.
THE GORGE debuts on Apple TV+ on Friday, Feb. 14.
RATING: 3 out of 4 stars
