Imagine you're provided with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go on an all expenses paid vacation to a luxurious private island owned by a famous tech-billionaire with a bunch of of strangers who you aren't at all familiar with, but roll the dice and decide to spend the foreseeable future with anyway.
And although everything seems like sunny skies and bottomless champagne bottles for the first few days, as time goes on you begin to notice a series of strange and suspicious events take place that cause you to question the reality of everything around you, eventually causing you to fight for your own survival in the most unknown of territories.
That is in a nutshell what we see cocktail waitress, Frida, experience once Channing Tatum's Slater King invites her to spend the coming days as his special guest on his private island.
'Blink Twice' is without a doubt a film that has much more going for it than what most audience members may anticipate before deciding to purchase a ticket for it. What initially seems to be a predictable and unoriginal story about something that goes wrong once our protagonist steps foot on a private island eventually surprises it's viewers with an intense range of plot twists that leave audience members with no choice but to stay intrigued throughout.
One of the main intriguing factors about this film is that it is in fact the directorial debut of actress, Zoe Kravitz. And given we are in the growing age of actors trying their hand at directing, the case tends to be that the product goes one way or another - very good or painfully bad.
And I think it's more than fair to say that Kravitz will have earnt herself a second and maybe even a third bite at the apple with future projects in the directors chair with her debut feature 'Blink Twice'.
It must be mentioned that the 35-year-old actress-turned-filmmaker has also displayed not only her talent behind the camera with her work on this project, but also her clear sense of creativity and storytelling behind the keyboard, as Kravitz also wrote the screenplay for this movie with her writing partner E.T. Feigenbaum.
'Blink Twice' is a film that heavily relies on the contents of it's screenplay to keep it's audience members enticed throughout. Although the direction and cast ensemble are both strong playmakers in this movie, it really is the storyline of the film that seems to be impressing both general audiences and critic groups.
This film handles some really strong subjects matters that cause the film to turn down some dark corners that some audience members may not have necessarily been anticipating. But you have to give credit to Kravitz' courage for willing to handle such subject matters as ill-intended drug usage and non-consensual sexual experiences throughout this movie.
Channing Tatum does a brilliant job of portraying tech-billionaire Slater King to the point where it's difficult to name many more actors working today who could capture his likability at his brightest moments as well as his despicableness at his darkest. 'Blink Twice' is yet again just another example of Tatum showing that he can be taken seriously in these dramatic roles and that he isn't just 'Magic Mike' or the hot one from '21 Jump Street'.
'Blink Twice' is without a doubt one of the hidden gems of 2024 and a more than impressive directorial debut feature film from Zoe Kravitz, who is arguably one of the last names you would expect to read when searching who would direct a movie of this kind. The film is entertaining, possesses a good original storyline and isn't afraid to take on some dark subject matters when called upon.
PrimeTime Films Score: C+
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