Random Acts of Violence

Directed by Jay Baruchel, Random Acts of Violence follows a comic book writer (Jesse Williams’ Todd) and three others (Jordana Brewster’s Kathy, Niamh Wilson’s Aurora, and Baruchel’s Ezra) as they encounter a series of murders while on a road trip. Filmmaker Baruchel, working from a script written with Jesse Chabot, delivers a progressively unwatchable thriller that strikes several wrong notes right from the get-go, as Random Acts of Violence has been suffused with an often unbearably off-kilter sense of style that grows more and more frustrating as time progresses – with the nails-on-a-chalkboard bent of the picture’s execution compounded by a complete and total lack of compelling protagonists. (These people are, without exception, just irredeemably bland.) The tedious mystery at the narrative’s core ultimately does little to alleviate the predominantly momentum-free vibe, and although Baruchel has admittedly included a small handful of engaging stand-alone sequences (eg three teenagers run afoul of the central killer), Random Acts of Violence builds towards a fairly endless climax that hardly packs the visceral punch Baruchel has clearly intended. (This is to say nothing of the third-act flashback that just seems to go on and on and on.) The end result is a mostly intolerable adaptation that feels much, much longer than its 80 minutes, which is too bad, ultimately, as it’s not difficult to envision this concept being utilized to far more entertaining (and competent) effect.

* out of ****