“Gosh, I wish something would happen.”
That’s what a friend said as we watched The Daily Wire’s new thriller, “Shut In.” Released on Feb. 10, “Shut In” is the first original film from Ben Shapiro’s media company.
The movie, while rich in symbolism and cinematic shots, lacked originality and really cannot be called a thriller.
The story begins with a newly sober Jessica, played by Rainey Qualley, her two children, and an abusive ex-boyfriend. She lives in the country with fields riddled with rotten apples, struggling to make ends meet. Her ex-boyfriend comes over, locks her in a pantry under a methamphetamine-induced rage, and she has to struggle to save her children before anything else can harm them.
“Shut In” thematically deals with the concept of good and bad people symbolized by apples throughout the entire movie. The movie is infused with ample additional religious symbolisms, which is really the only “conservative” thing about the film. The influence of religion on broken people was nicely explored with shots of a Bible, a statue of Jesus on the cross, and *spoiler alert* holes in the hands meant to advance the idea that just the presence of religious images and symbols have power and carry weight. They operated with subtlety until they decided you also needed it spelled out for you.
The movie is not political and served more to make a statement about humanity as a whole. Viewers wouldn’t know it’s a product of Ben Shapiro’s online empire, aside from the opening credits and the platform on which it’s watched.
Cinematically, the movie had a lot of classic, close-up, anticipation-building shots. In some cases, the shots served as excellent foreshadowing, but in most cases, they seemed to only be there for aesthetic purposes. While the cinematic aesthetics consistently create beautiful shots, closeups are notoriously meant to draw focus, and when a director chooses to adhere to that in some instances and not in others, it just becomes confusing.
Overall, the setting was well-established and believable, but the movie was a major letdown. Especially under the pretenses, from the Daily Wire itself, that this was a movie from a “fiercely independent film studio making movies that Americans love.” The concept itself was interesting, but that’s exactly what it remained the entire movie. It was a belabored concept that left the movie with a lot of dead space and boring scenes. There’s no humor. The mood throughout the entire movie was the same until the end when, shocker, the ambiance picks up. To call this movie a thriller would be inaccurate. The only times I felt truly engaged, on-the-edge-of-my-seat, thrilled was when something gory or violent took up the screen, maybe five or six times for about 30 seconds.
I do feel like the only conservative in America who did not adore this movie. I thought the movie was good, but it wouldn’t have been this appreciated or talked about if it wasn’t connected to the Daily Wire.
I wasn’t enthralled, I wasn’t shocked, and I wasn’t challenged like I would normally expect from The Daily Wire, but conservatives don’t need to like things just because conservatives made them. The movie has some good moments, but with mediocre dialogue and underwhelming plot details, I wouldn’t watch it again–and I can’t recommend that you watch it once.
