Rapid Eye Movement is a 2019 thriller about a radio DJ who attempts to break the world record for staying awake-under the threat of a deranged caller who will kill him if he falls asleep.
It begins like so many these days, with a moment of revelation that then skips back to show how it all began, a cliché that is more than a bit threadbare, the movies convinced we couldn’t possibly be interested in a story unless we had some clue where it was going. And so, we meet Rick Weider (François Arnaud), a somewhat popular New York City radio disc jockey who refuses to play Top 40, trying to give alternative music some exposure, but under pressure to make changes as his ratings drop. And he’s got just the idea to flip that around.
It’ll come as no surprise to learn that Rick isn’t much of a nice guy as things get started. He’s cocky and arrogant, in a failing marriage to the suffering Kathy (Chloe Brooks), she trying to patch things together while he actively avoids helping while he enjoys his good looks and fame. So desperate to get more listeners and skip out on counseling with Kathy, he arranges for a bit of a publicity stunt, pledging to beat the world record of staying awake the longest by putting himself in a glass box in the middle of Times Square, further adding it’s to raise money for a worthy cause. Problem is, the record is eleven days, which is daunting enough, but when he gets a phone call from a mysterious voice who says he will kill Rick if he falls asleep, things really begin to spiral.
Shot on location right in the middle of NYC, once the movie stuffs Rick into a glass cube, the story gains more traction, much of it feeling connected to Joel Schumacher‘s 2002 film Phone Booth. Rick learns quickly that he doesn’t have the slightest bit of control and must try to figure out how to lure in the caller, who is himself a killer, unhappy that little is being done to fight a disease he’s closely bound to.
Director and co-writer Peter Bishai isn’t straying too far from the formula, his use of Times Square giving him access to a bevy of quirky characters and backdrops while we watch Rick descend into madness. However, much like Schumacher’s film, there isn’t much all that convincing in Rapid Eye Movement, both sort of existing in an alternative reality where style and hyperbole reign supreme. By the time a talking praying mantis appears and starts taunting Rick in his hallucinatory sleep-deprived state, well, you feel it slipping away, especially since the role of the police are mostly left to a single detective (Danny Bolero) who conveniently (and aggressively) thinks the killer phone calls are nothing but a hoax, refusing to do anything about it, despite how legit it surely should be.
That said, the production is impressive with Bishai skirting around his low budget well, though he’s better in the director’s chair than behind the keyboard. This is a good looking movie but there’s not much innovation or credibility to the dialogue, opportunities for something far more clever given a wide berth. Still, Arnaud goes all in, on screen for nearly the whole thing and deeply committed to the slow erosion of a man trapped by his own making. Naturally, it becomes a kind of surreal fantasy, what with its blurry lens flares and saturated colors doing what they can to be artsy. Sure, there’s not much you won’t see coming, but if you let go the strings of credibility and let it play out as the trippy, neon-infused campy thriller it is, it’s a solid filler for a late night chiller.