“Knock at the Cabin” (2023)
M. Night Shyamalan is back with a new movie, “Knock at the Cabin”, which raises the question, will this one be good or suck?
Sadly since his first movies, that has been the case; he is able of the best with movies like “The Sixth Sense”, “Unbreakable”, “The Visit” and “Split” but also to deliver movies that are incredibly bad like “The Happening”, “The Last Airbender”, “After Earth” and his previous movie before this “Old”, so it’s always a gamble going into the cinema to watch his work.
“Knock at the Cabin” is one of his good movies, not a top-tier one but after “Old”, it feels like a masterpiece; at the same time, it is probably Dave Bautista best performance.
Bautista is able to balance his huge scary persona with a very gentle guy that is just trying to do the right thing, and he does this in a way that actually surprised me.
The movie does have a cool premise; the way it puts the weight of the world on the shoulders of this small family and how it addresses the anger we might have of the world is fascinating; sadly, it does feel rushed, and the sacrifices made by the characters don’t feel like they actually grew over time.
There is something that bothers me, and I don’t know if it was a choice from the director or them trying to get a lower age rating. Still, every time there is any kind of violence, the camera moves away, taking some of the gravitas of the sacrifices these interesting characters made. These interesting characters are never taken full advantage of because not much light shines on them or the consequences of the world outside.
The movie feels like a piece of a bigger story and that we are missing the start and the end, but still, it sets enough seeds to make our imagination go wild and make our own stories to fill the gaps.
“Knock at the Cabin” is probably one of the most interesting movies of January; it’s fun and engaging and gives me hope for what M. Night Shyamalan will do next; still lower your expectations, and it will work much better.
Have you seen it? What did you think?
What are your feelings on M. Night Shyamalan as a director?
