Interceptor (2022)

Netflix action thriller Interceptor t is a movie that just needs to calm down for a second, take a breath and start over.  Matthew Reilly’s debut feature throws so much at you so fast that you feel overwhelmed in the first 10 minutes and that is not to positive effect.  This is an action movie that takes place almost entirely at an interceptor station in the middle of the Atlantic and houses a few heroes into one room while the threat of nuclear annihilation becomes more and more eminent, but it also manages to pile on international terrorism, sexism, racism, slut shaming, gender politics and at least five other current social and political.

The movie opens with the information that The United States has two Interceptor Stations ready to take down an offensive inbound nuclear weapon launched by another country so we know immediately that this will be the case.  AND it just so happens that a new arrival has just landed on the station ready to take command.  She is JJ Collins (Elsa Pataky) who is just getting back on her feet after being slut-shamed when she ratted out a superior officer who sexually assaulted her.  What this all means when a nuclear assault is launched is really unnecessary and makes you wonder why Reilly didn’t just deal with that situation instead of piling it on top of a plot involving nuclear holocaust.

None-the-less, it all happens rather fast – too fast.  No sooner does she get her coat off before the alert comes in that 16 nukes are inbound from Russia and are hard-aimed at major U.S. cities.  Trying to get her head together, JJ discovers that the terrorists have been playing a long-con and are already aboard this very facility led by a former military intelligence officer named Alexander Kessel played in an overbearing performance by Luke Bracey, an actor who must have been paid by the word.  Seriously, the guy talks endlessly and you might consider that chopping out half of his dialogue might cut 30 minutes from the film.  Any-hoo, Kessel’s plan is total and complete annihilation with the goal that, in the aftermath, an America that has lost its way can be rebuilt to what it was in the glory days.

The whole action takes place within that control room as JJ tries to keep control until help arrives and Kessel, on the outside, does everything he can to breach the doors.  Every so often a fight breaks out and bullets start a-flyin’ but in between is Kessel’s attempts at psychologically denting JJ until she gives in.

It’s all a bit much.  This is a very slick, but woefully over-caffeinated action thriller that needs pacing that isn’t in fifth gear.  It moves so fast and throws so much at you that it almost feels like a parody of all of those Tom Clancy thrillers or even the old Cannon movies.  It can’t decide what it wants to be so it tries to be everything all at once.  That’s not good.