Send Help – Review

Cert – 15, Run-time – 1 hour 53 minutes, Director – Sam Raimi

After a plane crash a hardworking but overlooked employee (Rachel McAdams) leads the survival of her and her domineering new boss (Dylan O’Brien) on a small island until help arrives, if it ever does.

Just as you may be wondering whether Send Help is really a Sam Raimi movie the plane crash sequence arrives. The camera, still until this point, starts racing around the hurtling, and depleting, shell of the decreasingly airborne vehicle as people and furniture inside it start to be pulled out to their, occasionally bloody doom. Shock, humour and tension lie in the sequence that leads strategy and planning worker Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams) to be stranded on an island somewhere near the Gulf of Thailand with her arrogant new boss Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien), having just taken over from his father who had promised Linda a promotion to company VP.

The pair conflict early on in a set of office-based exchanges which sit comfortably in tongue-in-cheek cliché. Raimi and his cast play up the conventions, particularly Linda’s slightly awkward character; the glasses-and-cardigan-wearing lady who sits at home each night watching Survivor with her pet bird. It’s all part of the way the build-up to the eventual crash is leant into. Before McAdams can show off her character’s survival instincts – hinted at in the wide array of survival books on her shelves at home – and Raimi turns the film on its head with a good handful of blood splatters. Each making for a true big screen audience experience.

Hunting, fights and fending against the elements are all on the agenda and each is viewed with a wry smile from the director, and also his two leads. A hunt for a boar makes for an entertainingly grisly exchange with plenty of blood and snot on display. After already being exposed to the sensory side of things in the heat, and downpour, of the island this proves to just be a taster of things to come as a true exposing to the elements begins.

Linda leaps into her expertise and survival instincts while her boss – who she reminds they’re not in the office anymore – lies injured and believing that a large sign for help should be made instead of foraging for food. However, one proves better at maintaining strength than the other in their respective views on what should be done, and indeed one appears to be enjoying the experience much more than the other. As the two continue to conflict in the new light their dynamic is caught under there are a good few chuckles to be found in the egotism of O’Brien’s character. Particularly finding strength in the film’s second half.

McAdams’ proves a consistent force from start to finish, capturing the madness and yet focus that comes with Linda’s being on the island. Balancing tension and humour in a number of confrontational scenes where she suggests that she could be just as much of a threat as she can a help towards Bradley. Throughout she’s as aware of what’s going on as the film is. There’s a self-aware tone to much of what we see, yet one that still manages to create some truly squeamish images which induce audible gasps and winces, amongst some sometimes briefly distracting CG.

Things power along with deliriously entertaining force as the effects of the island have their respective impacts. A predictable third act development doesn’t even cause a major stumble as the battle for control continues to play out, and one that had a big smile on my face on a number of occasions from the pure enjoyment of it all. Even during the bloodier moments, and those which had me letting out slight yelps at one or two details and sequences, I couldn’t help but grin at the fun there was to be had with the self-aware, tongue-in-cheek nature that the film holds. Especially with Raimi behind the camera and the commitment of McAdams and O’Brien. Send Help is pure, grisly entertainment.

Inducing laughs and audible winces, Raimi and his two leads are fully committed to, and succeed in, making Send Help a deliriously entertaining and enjoyably grisly survival trip which turns itself on its head more than once.