‘Relive’: Blumhouse Horror Drama Starring David Oyelowo Is A Misguided ‘Twilight Zone’ [Sundance Review]

“Relive” hinges on a clever premise, and boasts a cast that includes David Oyelowo, Storm Reid, Bryan Tyree Henry, Alfred Molina, and Mykelti Williamson. It is written and directed by Jacob Aaron Estes, who also helmed “Mean Creek” and “The Details,” and comes from the good folks at Blumhouse. So taking all of that into consideration, it’s a genuinely depressing experience — a movie that seems to promise, at the very least, an entertaining “Twilight Zone” riff, and instead collapses into a pile of cop show and action movie clichés.

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Oyelowo stars as Jack, a police detective; Reid is Ashley, his niece, a relationship that is established by the way she calls him “Uncle Jack” every time she speaks to him. Her parents are going through a rough patch – her father (Henry) is particularly messy – so uncle and niece hang out and shoot the breeze quite a bit. But one night, her phone call is frantic, garbled, and quickly disconnected; Jack goes to their home and discovers everyone dead, the casualties of what appears to be a drug-related home invasion and execution.

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Jack is, understandably, an emotional wreck – and then, also understandably, confused when he gets a call a few days later from his dead niece. (“I feel like I’m goin’ crazy here, man,” he tells a fellow cop, in the understatement of the year). He starts puzzling out this utterly inexplicable thing, and discovers he and Ashley are in some kind of time warp – she’s calling him from four days ago, before her death, and thus, in time for Jack to save her. And he attempts to do just that, melding this Ellison-ish central premise with a modern riff on “D.O.A.” – he has her, in the past, investigating her own upcoming murder.

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Oyelowo’s been making some odd choices lately—sorry, “Gringo” and “Cloverfield Paradox” fans— but his work here is a nice reminder of what a sturdy, capable actor he is. His face, as he registers the carnage in his brother’s home, is so pained, it’s hard to watch; the complicated joy when he hears Ashley’s voice again is a sharp counterpoint. And he’s doing some fine acting in the scenes between, overwhelmed with grief and guilt, coming to terms with the gaping hole that’s opened in his life. Oyelowo can be great in just about anything, a notion that “Relive” puts to the test.

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Reid is also quite good, displaying more of the charisma that helped hold “Wrinkle in Time” together (she has a moment of scorching, raw acting near the end that’s goosebump-raising), and Williamson is as reliable as ever, though the prolific Mr. Henry (Seriously, when does this guy sleep?) is sadly underused. And the filmmaking is competent, boosted by the moody-as-hell score and cinematography.

The problem is Estes’ script. There are some real clunkers twisting around in the dialogue, and this viewer was way ahead of its big twists (and I never figure out big twists). But the main issue is that once Estes puts across the big gimmick, he doesn’t do much of anything with it. You keep waiting for him to take flight, to work out all the little inversions and inventions, and (aside from a couple of striking images) the ingenuity stops with the idea. Instead, “Relive” proves all too willing to fall into familiar tropes: shoot-outs, dirty cops, double crosses, etc. Even the intercutting of scenes and conversations from their separate timelines, effectively used early on, grows tiresome; by the end, we’re just watching two bad movies at once. [C-]

Check out all our coverage from the 2019 Sundance Film Festival here.