In her way to leave the desert, Areln, a young smart girl, who seeks to go to civilization, has been hijacked by cannibals, the thing that challenges her and risks her life.
Amirpour has ambitions bigger than the art house. She wants to make big, colorful blockbusters, too, and The Bad Batch feels like an audition reel to take over Mad Max.
While her visual flair is strong, Amirpour's arch tone stifles the charisma of her cast... By the end of The Bad Batch, she has painted a fascinating scene, but she's also painted her characters into corners from which she can't help them escape.
It's a trippy, sun-scorched apocalyptic horror film with a rom-com finish that gets as bloody, visceral and cannibalistic as its U.S. R rating will allow.
The film wants ambiguity -- not the kind of thing generally found in pulp -- leaving us with unreadable characters and a distinct petering-out of tension.
Filmmaker-to-watch Ana Lily Amirpour again shakes up a familiar genre - here, the postapocalyptic adventure - in unexpected ways, but stumbles a bit in the process.
