Once you get over the fact that there won’t be much resembling logical human behavior in “Detained,” the film that follows undeniably provides its own simple pleasures in the Goofy Escapism department. Heavily inspired by “The Usual Suspects,” right down to the inclusion of a mysterious villain who might be in the room with us, “Detained” has so many twists and turns that it’s difficult to be overly critical of one before the next one has had a chance to rattle expectations. Yes, this is an undeniably dumb movie about dumb people. But there’s something charming about its single-setting stupidity, dropping a bunch of idiots in an impossible situation and bouncing them off each other until most of them are dead.
The great Abbie Cornish (who gives one of my most underrated performances in Jane Campion’s “Bright Star”) stars as Rebecca Kamen, a woman who wakes up in police custody … maybe. From the opening scenes of “Detained,” it’s pretty obvious that something’s not quite right with the set-up, even though my brain couldn’t quite wrap itself around whether or not this was just a bad movie or an obvious set-up. While this might be a bit spoiler-y, it happens early enough and is telegraphed completely enough that I feel it’s safe to reveal that Rebecca is not in your usual precinct. There’s something much darker going on.
When Rebecca comes to, she’s told that she was involved with a hit and run that may have resulted in the death of a cyclist – one of the things that seems not to make sense is a strident interrogation of a woman who was too blackout drunk to remember if she got into a car accident. Still, it’s just one of several times you’ll have to suspend disbelief to enjoy this one. It feels like there would be other ways to prove if she did or not. Before Rebecca can ask this kind of question, she’s been thrown in a holding cell with another woman (Josephine Lindegaard) and an older junkie (Silas Weir Mitchell). A scuffle leads to a gunshot, which leads to an attempt on Rebecca’s part to use money to make it all go away. Before Rebecca can successfully pay off what she thinks is her investigating officer, the curtain falls and it becomes clear that this is all a truly ludicrous con game, one orchestrated by a man named Avery (Laz Alonso of “The Boys”) who may be working for or may actually be a legendary villain named Keyser Soze – wait, I mean Jovan. You get the idea.
It may be my theatre background, but I’m kind of a sucker for a single-setting thriller, one that develops personalities and then pushes them into each other, something pops. A key element for the successful versions of this concept is a cast that understands the assignment, and director/co-writer Felipe Mucci found that here. Alonso is having fun in ways that I honestly wish his Prime Video hit would allow more often, but what works is the variety in the extended group of “Ridiculous Suspects,” including Moon Bloodgood as a tough-talking detective and the great Justin H. Min (“After Yang”) as Rebecca’s alleged attorney. Low-budget films like “Detained” often end up with mediocre casts, but this one is surprisingly sharp, with a group of performers having a good time with their ludicrous concept and hoping you will too.
Near the end, after all the chaos has unfolded, there’s a soundbite of someone saying, “Not entirely clear on the motive either.” I laughed out loud. Yes, “Detained” makes almost no sense if someone thinks about its too many twists and turns, and there’s an undeniably tighter, more stylish version of this movie that rounds off a few of those sharp edges into something grittier and more realistic. And yet there’s almost something refreshing about a B-movie that embraces its B-movieness. It may not be “The Usual Suspects,” but “The Usual Idiots” is pretty fun too.
