I honestly wanted more thrills and excitement. Dark State reminds me of Law and Order. It’s a good show, but it’s primarily people talking, and we follow the trail of one revelation to the next. The acting is good and typical of independent film actors looking to get their reps in and prove they can take on meatier roles than what the big studios are willing to give relative unknowns.
What money could buy is some action. Maybe a car or foot chase, quality gunfights, or hand-to-hand combat with incredible stunts. The film does have an action sequence involving Alicia doing extensive research. She’s on the internet flagging information and meticulously sifting through boxes of paperwork and evidence. As dull as this sounds, it’s shot in a time-lapse music video style that works.
“…it’s primarily people talking, and we follow the trail of one revelation to the next.”
Given these financial obstacles, Dark State does a pretty good job with the resources it did have. The acting is good. When playing with conspiracies and deep state groups pulling the strings, it’s easy to play the villains as overly suspicious. The heel characters are pretty grounded, which helps elevate O’Rourke’s Alicia as the reporter, who’s onto a story that seems too big for her. It’s the highlight of the film.
I need to mention the ending. There’s a twist, and I’m not exactly buying it. Without giving anything away, the story from start to finish needs to drop subtle seeds so that when it happens, it all makes sense. The Sixth Sense is the gold standard. Hints were dropped so that when the twist occurs, it forces the audience to go back and find those clues. If the clues are there, I didn’t catch them all.
Dark State is a film with something interesting to say about the world around us and questions who is really in charge and what a person has to give up or compromise to fulfill that American Dream. It’s very low-budget, and I’m not convinced the director entirely overcame this primary hurdle, but at the same time, there are enough good elements to get a tepid recommendation.
"…what a person has to give up or compromise to fulfill that American Dream."
