New Jersey Stage logo
New Jersey Stage Menu


?>

 

REVIEW: Green Room


By Eric Hillis, TheMovieWaffler.com

originally published: 03/22/2016


Six years after his debut with Murder Party, writer-director Jeremy Saulnier returned with a vengeance with 2013’s critically acclaimed revenge drama Blue Ruin. Thankfully he hasn’t left such a long gap to give us his third feature, Green Room, which plays, in the very best sense, like a debut - it’s raw, edgy and feels like we’re watching a filmmaker ejaculating years of pent-up ideas on the screen.

The Ain’t Rights are, as you might expect in 2016, a struggling punk band, wandering from town to town in the American North West in search of low paying gigs, siphoning gas from parked cars to keep their beat up van moving. After getting stiffed by yet another promoter, the band find themselves playing at a roadhouse venue that doubles as a meeting point for skinhead white supremacists. They don’t exactly endear themselves to the crowd by opening their set with a cover of The Dead Kennedys’ ‘Nazi Punks F Off’, and things get worse when they venture backstage, now a murder scene thanks to a skinhead plunging a blade into the head of a teenage girl.

What follows is one of the most unbearably tense cinematic experiences you’ll have had in quite a few years, as the band members lock themselves in the venue’s green room while Patrick Stewart’s gang leader assembles his troops outside. We’re currently reaping the rewards of a generation of filmmakers raised on the genre fare of John Carpenter and Walter Hill, and Green Room mashes together the central hooks of Assault on Precinct 13 and Southern Comfort, amping up the violence to an alarmingly realistic degree.

At a brisk 95 minutes, Saulnier keeps his film moving, but while it’s quickly paced, it never skimps on characterization. Amid the chaos and paranoia we get to know these people, which makes their violent outcomes all the more shocking. While Stewart and his young hoods are essentially cartoon villains and unmasked slashers, our protagonists are very real and flawed. Asked to name their favorite bands by an interviewer early on, they opt for obscure punk bands, but later, facing what seems like certain death, they reveal the truth about their not quite so esoteric taste, and there’s a wonderful moment featuring a savage dog that subverts all expectations. While Saulnier is undoubtedly technically adept, it’s these moments of humanity that make him stand out from the masses of filmmakers whose violent thrillers disappear into streaming obscurity.

Much has been made of the casting coup in relation to Stewart, and he’s as great here as you might imagine, but it’s the reteaming of the Fright Night remake’s Anton Yelchin, as the reluctant band leader, and Imogen Poots, as a skinhead girl who teams up with our out of depth protagonists, that really seals the deal here. Poots is at her career best, channelling the spirit of the cynical anti-heroes essayed by Keith Carradine and Darwin Joston in the aforementioned Hill and Carpenter thrillers. With Poots confessing to her ambiguous hatred of non-whites early on, Saulnier has the balls to present us with an outwardly unlikeable character, only to have us cheering for her by the third act. Likewise the band members, who initially present themselves as a bunch of narcissistic tykes. This isn’t a simple case of good guys against bad guys, rather not so good guys against very, very bad guys.




Reach New Jersey's largest arts & entertainment audience, click here for info on how to advertise at NJ Stage



Like any good punk gig, Green Room is best experienced with an audience, as Saulnier manipulates us into pogo-ing out of our seats in terror. Whether punk is dead or not is an ongoing debate, but on the evidence of Green Room, down and dirty genre cinema is alive and gobbing in our faces.

Directed by Jeremy Saulnier. Starring Patrick Stewart, Imogen Poots, Alia Shawkat, Anton Yelchin

Green Room

4 ½ stars out of 5

 




Eric Hillis is a film critic living in Sligo, Ireland who runs the website TheMovieWaffler.com



Reach New Jersey's largest arts & entertainment audience, click here for info on how to advertise at NJ Stage


FEATURED EVENTS

ART | COMEDY | DANCE | FILM | MUSIC | THEATRE | COMMUNITY

To narrow results by date range, categories,
or region of New Jersey
click here for our advanced search.


How

How to Train Your Dragon in Concert

Friday, July 11, 2025 @ 7:00pm
Mayo Performing Arts Center (MPAC)
100 South Street, Morristown, NJ 07960
category: film


 

How

How to Train Your Dragon in Concert

Saturday, July 12, 2025 @ 2:00pm
State Theatre New Jersey
15 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ 08901
category: film


 

FREE

FREE SUMMER MOVIE: Moana 2

Tuesday, July 15, 2025 @ 7:00pm
State Theatre New Jersey
15 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ 08901
category: film


 

FREE

FREE SUMMER MOVIE: Moana 2

Tuesday, July 15, 2025 @ 10:30am
State Theatre New Jersey
15 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ 08901
category: film


 

FREE

FREE SUMMER MOVIE: The Wild Robot

Tuesday, July 22, 2025 @ 7:00pm
State Theatre New Jersey
15 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ 08901
category: film


 



Advertise with NJ Stage for $50-$100 per month, click here for info





 

EVENT PREVIEWS

The

The ShowRoom presents: UNSTREAMABLE CINEMA – Four Daring Films You Won't Find Online

(ASBURY PARK, NJ) -- This summer, The ShowRoom proudly launches UNSTREAMABLE CINEMA—a provocative new series showcasing four bold and controversial films that are currently unavailable on any streaming platform. These are rare, one-night-only opportunities to see these uncompromising works on the big screen, where they belong.



Fall

Fall 2025 New Jersey Film Festival Preview

(NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ) -- The New Jersey Film Festival returns to Rutgers University September 5 through October 10, 2025. As it has done the last few years, the festival will include select in-person screenings with all films available via video on-demand (VOD) as well. There are also a few screenings available only via VOD. Twenty films will have their New Jersey or Area Premiere (Middlesex County).



The

The Levoy Theatre hosts the CUT International Short Film Festival

(MILLVILLE, NJ) -- The Levoy Theatre hosts the CUT International Short Film Festival September 19-20, 2025. The festival's motto is 'Short Films for Quick Minds'. Its aim is to become the premier festival in New Jersey for short form films.



Count

Count Basie Center for the Arts presents An Evening With Francis Ford Coppola and screening of "Megalopolis"

(RED BANK, NJ) -- Legendary director, Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, The Outsiders) is bringing his monumental 2024 film, Megalopolis, to select cities across the country. The tour kicks off at the Count Basie Center for the Arts on Sunday, July 20, 2025 at 7:00pm.



The

The Williams Center to Screen "Wayward Kin" by David Joseph Volino

(RUTHERFORD, NJ) -- After a four-year-long production process, filmmaker and New Jersey native, David Joseph Volino, is sharing the full-length feature, Wayward Kin, with local audiences. See the film for one night only at The Williams Center in Rutherford on Wednesday, July 23, 2025. The screening begins at 7:00pm with the cast and crew in attendance.