Green Room

Green Room (2016) is about a punk band on tour playing the wrong venue. They have no money and are arguing about petrol. A go between finds them a show in the Oregon woods and does not quite say what the place is: a bar run by a neo Nazi gang. As a provocation the band opens with an anti Nazi song and the room freezes. Then they go back into the room behind the stage for something and see a body on the floor. From there it becomes a siege. The best thing about it is the realism. Nobody knows how to fight, the guns jam, wounds are disabling, and the characters keep making bad decisions because they are frightened. Jeremy Saulnier had made Blue Ruin and continues the same idea: violence is clumsy, ugly and cannot be undone. Patrick Stewart plays the owner and never raises his voice; the man works like a manager, calculating how to close the problem. Anton Yelchin leads; he died in an accident shortly after the film came out. The music and the band scenes come out of the real punk scene and the songs were written for the film. It is short and never stops. It runs 95 minutes. Good for: thrillers, survival, and punk culture. Less good for: the violence is very graphic and distressing, and the scenes with the dogs are hard.