Jamie Costa – Through the Shattered Lens

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable or streaming? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

Are you having trouble getting to sleep tonight? Is your excitement about the upcoming Horrorthon keeping you awake? Well, if that’s case, you can always go over to YouTube and watch the 2023 film, Bring Him To Me.

In Bring Him To Me, Barry Pepper plays the driver. He’s a quiet man, a career criminal who is good at his job but who also doesn’t seem to particularly like it. We don’t really learn much about the Driver, at least not until the very end of the film. But one look at Pepper’s rough-hewn face and his world-weary eyes tells us more about him than any monologue could. He’s someone who has seen things that he would rather forget.

In this film, his job is to transport a talkative and asthmatic man credited as being the Passenger (Jamie Costa). We do eventually learn the Passenger’s name and quite a bit about his family situation. That’s because the Passenger will not stop talking. While the Driver is trying to do his job and transport the Passenger without getting emotionally involved in any of it, the Passenger simply will not stop revealing details about himself.

The film takes place entirely at night. The Driver finds himself being pursued by a number of different people, including a shady pawn shop owner (Sam Neill) who wants vengeance for both a theft and a beating. The film doesn’t always follow a linear timeline so it takes a while before it becomes clear just exactly what’s going on. Fortunately, there’s enough action and moral ambiguity to hold the viewer’s attention. This is the type of film that demands a lead who can keep everything from spinning out of control and Barry Pepper fulfills the role admirably.

I have to admit that, when Bring Him To Me started, I didn’t have much hope for it. The non-linear timeline, the occasional forced quirkiness of the dialogue, and the constant cursing made the film seem like it was just another heist film made by someone who was trying to be the next Tarantino. That said, the film won me over. Barry Pepper won me over. The gorgeous night cinematography won me over. And eventually, even the twisty story won me over. In the end, director Luke Sparke managed to bring all the disparate elements together into an intriguing noir-flavored film.

Bring Him To Me surprised me by actually being a decent movie. That’s one of the fun things about watching a random movie in the middle of the night. You never know what you might discover.