Nothing is what it seems in the near-perfect psychological thriller Newcomer. It’s a jigsaw puzzle of a movie in which the pieces are merely sounds, leaving its titular neophyte to naively imagine a truth that fits his conscience.
Set in a gloomy Serbia, the film is fuzzy in expository detail but skillfully constructed. An idealistic rookie operative Alex (James Floyd) working for a shadow CIA organization tragically bungles his first assignment when he allows a disguised assassin to enter the building he’s guarding and four members of his team are murdered, including the father-figure mentor (Anthony LaPaglia) who’s consistently expressed confidence in the new recruit’s capabilities. When his remaining associates resort to unorthodox means to elicit the killer’s identity (despite his acute powers of perception, a guilt-wracked Alex can’t describe the deadly intruder), the novice flees to solve the mystery himself by obsessively re-listening to the audio tape of those terrible few minutes – spoken words, footsteps, gunshots – to mentally re-create what happened. (Editor Dominic LaPerriere expertly weaves the envisioned sequences in Alex’s head into the real-time narrative.) What Alex sadly fails to realize, however, is that the answer was always in front of his eyes.
There’s not an inch of fat on Newcomer. It’s a lean, taut thriller with a compelling narrative that rarely strains credibility, a joy to watch for anyone who loves the genre. Director/screenwriter Kai Barry has crafted the kind of movie that eludes most mainstream American filmmakers, who should take careful note on how it should be done. When the bitter, terrible truth is cynically revealed in a third-act showdown taking place in a deceptively peaceful wooded countryside, you feel Alex’s pain, heartbreak, and determination deep in your gut. When’s the last time a movie did that for you?
Newcomer screens again Monday, Nov. 2, 11pm, at the Alamo Village. See www.austinfilmfestival.com for info and tickets, and follow all of our AFF coverage here.
This article appears in Attack of the 50-Foot Uterus!.
