Sometime around this time, three years ago, I wrote about Jim Cummings’ excellent Thunder Road film, which was his debut work. Last year he presented us with the horror comedy The Wolf of Snow Hollow, which failed to repeat the success and quality of the first film, while now it brings us a combination of thriller and black comedy. The Beta Test which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, and hit theaters on November 5.
The Beta Test movie review, plot
This time, Cummings plays Jordan, an agent for Hollywood talents who does not have roses in business and who is about to marry his longtime fiancée. The plot arises when he receives a mysterious letter in which an unknown person offers him a sexual encounter without obligations with a complete stranger. By accepting the offer, his life turns upside down and he is trapped in a sinister world of lies, infidelity, murder and digital data.
Jim Cummings is the author of independent comedies that revolve around his ability to interpret unstable men who try to grasp a sense of power that exists only in their imagination. After a police officer-sad clown and a police officer treated alcoholic who have in common that they are intolerant to stress, here is an agent who is facing an existential career crisis whose acceptance of an anonymous sexual offer has deepened the moral crisis. The terribly violent introductory scene shows us how much things can go wrong because of accepting a mysterious offer, and Jordan’s opening of the envelope gives us a sense of how much things could get out of control at any moment.
Because Jordan is selfish and destructive, I have not been able to connect with him and sincerely encourage him to succeed in his mission and intentions. However, I must admit that he was hilarious to watch, primarily because he had a smile on his face all the time, regardless of the fact that in no scene was that smile authentic. Jordan is convinced that he is charming and sympathetic, so for a narcissistic man like him, the attraction of random sex with a stranger is quite great, so much so that he doesn’t even think about wedding preparations anymore – that he doesn’t have the qualities of a man desperately trying to impress an alpha male. everything that happens to him could pass as a tragedy.
The script tries to connect Jordan’s temptation with his job, that is, the general way of doing business in Hollywood, which includes sexual harassment, exploitation and treatment of subordinates without a basic level of decency and respect. Jordan is not coping in the modern age, which, thanks to the Internet and the human resources department, has limited predatory business practices, so he is left with “only” a stable relationship based on love and respect that does not fulfill him at all.
In general, the script more or less successfully managed to connect the story in a kind of paranoid thriller with a Hollywood environment in which people like Jordan, that is, those preoccupied with themselves, used to go far. I expected the final unfolding to explain the purpose of the whole scheme in more detail, i.e. the unfolding was surprisingly gentle and easy for me for such an energetic film. General, The Beta Test I liked it as a black comedy with an extremely unsympathetic antihero, primarily because Cummings presents it so well, but as a thriller it is quite shaky.
The Beta Test is an uneven combination of dark thriller and Hollywood satire that deals with issues of temptation and digital identity – a relatively entertaining black comedy that lacks a slightly clearer vision and true focus of the story. Release date October 15, 2021 (United Kingdom) and November 5, 2021 (United States). Final rating: 7/10.
The Beta Test movie cast and characters
- Jim Cummings as Jordan Hines
- Virginia Newcomb as Caroline Gates
- PJ McCabe as PJ
- Jessie Barr as Lauren
- Kevin Changaris
- Olivia Grace Applegate
- Christian Hillborg
- Malin Barr as Annie
- Jacqueline Doke as Jaclyn
- Wilky Lau as Raymond Lee
source: IMDB
More Movie News: Spider-man: No Way Home (2021) Movie Review, Plot, Characters
The Beta Test Ending Explained
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_8H6LqsiLg