Barbarians (2021) is a horror movie directed by Charles Dorfman. It deals with friends who have dinner and is interrupted by a home invasion. Below is my short Barbarians (2021) movie review
Barbarians is a weird movie. Initially it is a movie about a dinner gone wrong where friends are rocked by revealed secrets. In the last 30 minutes (in a 90 min movie) it turns into a home invasion movie. It comes out of nowhere and it jolts us away from the main story. This does not get resolved by the end of the movie. It is put on a backburner as a robber story takes a wheel.
In the beginning we are introduced to four characters that are having dinner. One is the alpha male, another is the stereotypical hot girl. The other two is an artist with her meek boyfriend who has issues with confrontations. There is nothing special about any of them. They have some secrets and a murky past but they are not interesting. Most of the movie is them talking and/or arguing about dumb stuff.
When we get to the invasion it stirs the story a bit but it does not elevate the overall plot. The robbers don’t talk and are basically not sure why they are there. This is not presented but it appears like they are confused on what to do. Therefore they start smashing things around tying up the 4 main characters. They make a few mistakes that send them into a run as tables are turned and main characters overpower them. After this for the next 20 min (including end credits), they run around and not do much. Hard to tie up everything with less than 10 min left in the actual story.
This is one of those pandemic movies that seems to have less than 1 million budget. The story is boring, the characters are boring, and the revelations/secrets are extremely boring. The setting is nice but not explored much. As for the robber, they have very weak motivations and don’t look threatening at all. The movie plays it extremely safe and does not attempt anything different. It relies on cliches and already set lore of movies in similar genres that it becomes boring and predictable.
Thanks for reading my short Barbarians (2021) movie review
