Movie Review

Onslaught can’t find its footing in brutal mix of horror, action, comedy

Adria Arjona in Onslaught.

Photo courtesy of A24

The most important thing for any movie to establish early on is its tone. No matter the genre, a film needs to make its audience understand how they should feel as the story unfolds so that they’re willing to go along with whatever transpires on screen. A film that doesn't do that, such as the new Onslaught, runs the risk of failing to connect with viewers even if it has some interesting or fun elements to offer.

One of the biggest issues for the movie is that it fails to fully invest in its main character, Celeste (Adriana Arjona). She’s a military veteran who now lives in and manages a desert trailer park, which is filled with a motley crew of offbeat people. She also has a contentious relationship with her ex, who unexpectedly drops off their daughter, Daisy (Blake Kennedy), soon after the film begins.

Celeste has a stash of high-powered weapons, showing she hasn’t left her former career fully behind. Her expertise comes in handy when something goes wrong at a nearby military contractor facility run by Hans Kemmler (Dan Stevens), and a trio of super soldiers escapes into the wild. Trained to kill everyone in their path, it’s not long before they set their glowing eyes on the trailer park.

Directed by Adam Wingard and written by Simon Barrett, the film has elements of horror, action, and comedy, but the filmmakers struggle in finding the right combination of the three. Wingard and Barrett divide the film’s focus between the trailer park and the military facility for a long time at the beginning of the film, and the quirkiness of people at the former mixed with the bold weirdness of the people at the latter keep viewers off balance in a bad way.

Once they finally settle into the main part of the story where the super soldiers go on a rampage, the filmmakers overpromise and underdeliver. The showdown between a seemingly unstoppable group and an angry woman and her band of misfits seems destined to be highly entertaining, but comes off as underwhelming. The sequence is filled with brutality with no meaning and heroics that feel more accidental than purposeful.

The ham-fisted way in which the story plays out is disappointing since the film has a bunch of characters who could have been great if used properly. The trauma of Celeste’s military career and personal life are hinted at, but don’t come into play as much as expected. Hans and his wife Hanna (Rebecca Hall) are completely off-the-wall, but their eccentricities seem to be apropos of nothing. The super soldiers are initially intimidating, but the climactic sequence undercuts them significantly.

Arjona has yet to fully break out despite some good roles in Hit Man and the Disney+ show Andor. She makes for a good lead here, embodying the toughness of a military veteran while still being relatable. Stevens and Hall go all in with their bonkers characters, but the story doesn’t serve them well. Comic relief comes in the form of Reginald VelJohnson and Eric Wareheim, and they do a great job in smaller roles.

A movie like Onslaught is typically one where the audience just turns off their brains and enjoys the carnage. But Wingard and Barrett try a little too hard by throwing in oddball characters that don’t add much to the story, forgetting to pay enough attention to the mechanics of the plot in the process.

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Onslaught opens in theaters on September 4.

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Movie Review

Robert Pattinson slays in Primetime as dubious host who catches predators

Photo courtesy of A24

Robert Pattinson in Primetime.

Robert Pattinson is among a select group of actors with multiple high-profile roles in 2026, having already starred in The Drama and The Odyssey, with Dune: Part Three yet to come. But the one that may earn him an Oscar nomination - if not win - is Primetime, in which he stars as Chris Hansen, the former host of the Dateline NBC show To Catch a Predator.

The film, directed by Lance Oppenheim and written by Ajon Singh, plops viewers right in the middle of the short-lived run (2004-2007) of the program, which aimed to expose men for trying to have sex with teenagers. Hansen is obsessed with making the show successful, which means enticing as many child predators as they can and recruiting young-looking adult actors to serve as decoys for sting operations.

Helping him in his pursuit is producer Andie Bender (Merrit Wever), who has her own ambitions; recruiter Xavier Von Erck (Matthew Maher), who perhaps enjoys trapping predators a bit too much; and decoys Dan Plumb (Skyler Gisondo) and Del (Phoebe Bridgers), who have to muster all the improv skills they can when the men show up. As the story proceeds, each participant weighs their own level of comfort with the controversial practices of the show as a whole.

Depending on the audience, the film can play as a serious drama, a comedy, a horror, or a combination of all three. It seems like Oppenheim wants to confront the audience with the uncomfortable feeling of not having anyone for whom to root. You certainly can’t feel bad for the predators, who actively engage with someone they believe to be a child. But the process of getting men on the show, as well as the treatment of the decoys, is itself unsavory and difficult to defend.

At the center is a protagonist whose persona is interesting as a character, but less appealing as an actual person. As Hansen pushes everyone around him to do all they can for the sake of the show, his hubris puts him right in line with your standard antihero. But the idea of a man obsessed with his job who all but ignores his family and cheats on his wife is ultimately not that compelling and plays like the cliché it is.

If the film was supposed to be an exposé on what Hansen and the show as a whole got wrong in the pursuit of justice, it fails to bring about any strong feelings on either side. The one area where it does succeed is in its depictions of the two decoys, and Oppenheim might have been better served by showcasing them more. The film does shift toward being more of a story about Dan than Hansen, but not enough to make a big impact.

Oppenheim has seemingly devised the film as an acting showcase, and in that regard it works well. Pattinson is all-in with his performance, going to great lengths to demonstrate Hansen’s passion for the show. He has many fantastic line readings, including a one-word utterance late in the film that brings the house down. Wever and Gisondo are just as good, and Bridgers — making her acting debut — steals several of the scenes she’s in.

The impact To Catch a Predator had on society despite the small number of episodes (20) it had is something worth exploring, as the documentary Predators did in 2025. But Primetime doesn’t get to the heart of the matter in a way that makes for necessary viewing, leaving it as a testament to the skills of its actors and not much else.

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Primetime opens in theaters on September 25.

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