Sunrise begins with title cards about a local legend known as The Red Coat. Basically, it is a demon that has survived for centuries on sacrifices that have been given in its name. Wounded Fallon (Alex Pettyfer, Magic Mike) is found by an immigrant family. He does what he can to help them out, but dark memories from the past haunt him.
The film tries to introduce a number of themes to make for a layered story. Along with the supernatural elements, xenophobia, nationalism, and small town life are all touched on. Sunrise seems to want to say something. Unfortunately, it never gets out of first gear. Every scene seems to be setting up a big payoff. It may sound like a well written story, but it just feels like it is spinning its wheels.
The main issue is Sunrise never establishes a tone. It is gloomy in the way that most stories about low income American towns are while never going beneath the surface. The end result is never actively bad – there are even some nice, if generic atmospheric shots. At the same time, the movie never does anything to draw audiences in.
This extends to the characters. When the first ten words from Reynolds (Guy Pearce, Mare of Easttown) are a series of racial slurs, the red flags come up. Instead of writing an evil character, Reynolds opens by saying a lot of racist things so there is no doubting he is a bad person. The cast do the best with what they have, but there is not much to work with.
Perhaps most surprisingly, Sunrise is not a bad movie. It is meandering and confusing, but the straightforward approach prevents things from ever becoming outright horrible. There are a lot of good ideas, the script is just never to tie them all together. And wouldn’t you know it? It almost pulls off that satisfying payoff.
Sunrise drops in theaters and digital and On Demand January 19
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