The great Abbie Cornish (who gives one of my most underrated performances in Jane Campion’s “Bright Star”) stars as Rebecca Kamen, a woman who wakes up in police custody … maybe. From the opening scenes of “Detained,” it’s pretty obvious that something’s not quite right with the set-up, even though my brain couldn’t quite wrap itself around whether or not this was just a bad movie or an obvious set-up. While this might be a bit spoiler-y, it happens early enough and is telegraphed completely enough that I feel it’s safe to reveal that Rebecca is not in your usual precinct. There’s something much darker going on.
When Rebecca comes to, she’s told that she was involved with a hit and run that may have resulted in the death of a cyclist – one of the things that seems not to make sense is a strident interrogation of a woman who was too blackout drunk to remember if she got into a car accident. Still, it’s just one of several times you’ll have to suspend disbelief to enjoy this one. It feels like there would be other ways to prove if she did or not. Before Rebecca can ask this kind of question, she’s been thrown in a holding cell with another woman (Josephine Lindegaard) and an older junkie (Silas Weir Mitchell). A scuffle leads to a gunshot, which leads to an attempt on Rebecca’s part to use money to make it all go away. Before Rebecca can successfully pay off what she thinks is her investigating officer, the curtain falls and it becomes clear that this is all a truly ludicrous con game, one orchestrated by a man named Avery (Laz Alonso of “The Boys”) who may be working for or may actually be a legendary villain named Keyser Soze – wait, I mean Jovan. You get the idea.
It may be my theatre background, but I’m kind of a sucker for a single-setting thriller, one that develops personalities and then pushes them into each other, something pops. A key element for the successful versions of this concept is a cast that understands the assignment, and director/co-writer Felipe Mucci found that here. Alonso is having fun in ways that I honestly wish his Prime Video hit would allow more often, but what works is the variety in the extended group of “Ridiculous Suspects,” including Moon Bloodgood as a tough-talking detective and the great Justin H. Min (“After Yang”) as Rebecca’s alleged attorney. Low-budget films like “Detained” often end up with mediocre casts, but this one is surprisingly sharp, with a group of performers having a good time with their ludicrous concept and hoping you will too.