Expired (2022)

Ivan Sen's SF art house piece EXPIRED (original title LOVELAND) is getting a digital release from Reel2Reel films. 

In a Hong Kong of the future Jack (Ryan Kwanten, likely best known to readers here from James Wan's DEAD SILENCE) is a hit man who finds himself simultaneously falling in love with Karaoke nightclub singer April (Jillian Nguyen) and finding that his health is deteriorating. He finds he is being followed and when one of his pursuers is killed, the chip that is dislodged from the man's head turns out to be from a corporation whose head of development, a Dr Bergman (Hugo Weaving) has disappeared.

Jack finds Bergman working in a supermarket. He's still carrying on research in his flat, and he has some answers as to why Jack had been feeling the way that he has.

The publicity for EXPIRED compares it to BLADE RUNNER but apart from some nice neon-augmented cityscapes of Hong Kong this is pretty meagre stuff. It's slow to the point of being ponderous and not well-enough written for the dialogue to be anywhere near as meaningful as it so desperately wants to be. The biggest problem though, is the lack of a decent plot to drive everything, making you wonder exactly what audience EXPIRED is aimed at. The discussions on identity and the revelation at the end are all very well, but they are the kind of things that are for the downtime scenes of a movie like this, in between the main action, something which EXPIRED completely lacks. I'm not saying every film needs exploding helicopters and car chases but this is a case where such elements could have done nothing but improved the experience. I described it as art house at the beginning but even if you have plenty of patience and enjoy slowly delivered portentous dialogue you might find yourself having trouble getting through this one. Anyway, here's a trailer that definitely makes the film look more interesting than it actually is:

EXPIRED is out on digital from Reel2Reel on Monday 7th November 2022