Direction: Vasilis Katsoupis
Country: USA
Slightly intriguing yet not particularly mind-blowing, Inside is a part artsy, part survival psychological thriller written by Ben Hopkins (The Nine Lives of Tomas Katz, 2000; The Market, 2008), directed by Vasilis Katsoupis (in his directorial debut), and almost exclusively starred by Willem Dafoe (The Lighthouse, 2019; Tommaso, 2019). He plays a notorious art thief whose life becomes threatened when he gets trapped in a luxurious Manhattan penthouse.
Before we see this coordinated heist getting wrong, Nemo (Dafoe), the narrator-thief tells that, above anything else, art is for keeps. He also confesses he likes a challenge, but probably not one like he was about to describe. In search of valuable works by the expressionist Egon Schiele, this art maniac will have to fight for his life when locked in a fancy apartment with barely no food, no water, no cooking gas, and no landline phone service. If this was not enough, a broken thermostat gets him freezing cold and sweltering hot by turns. The discomfort goes even further as the fridge automatically plays that annoying “Macarena” song whenever its door remains open for more than a minute.
Inside is like Cube (1997) without the inventiveness of sci-fi. It’s too ponderous and controlled to provide any thrills, and the lack of rhythm makes any possible isolation-driven tension dissipate.
A minimalistic piano score attempts to potentiate the solitude of a man on the verge of losing his mental sanity. There’s also this surreal side - introduced via eerie dreams - that doesn’t take us anywhere tangible. I found this unfinished nightmare to be more pretentious than gripping, yet kudos to Dafoe for the dedicated performance.
