Fort Worth Weekly
Jamie Dornan and Anthony Mackie see a new drug up close in Synchronic.
You may not know the names of Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead. I’ve been tracking this filmmaking team for a while now. I liked their debut feature
Spring and was less enamored of their follow-up film
The Endless (in which they starred), but in both I found makers of intelligent, thoughtful science-fiction with special effects that look cool even on the low budgets that they work with. Their third movie,
Synchronic, hits our theaters this week with one recognizable actor, and it’s a better-realized time travel film than either
“Time is a lie,” reads a graffitied warning glimpsed near the start of
Synchronic, the latest low-budget mindbender from the resourceful US team of Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, whose last film was the 2017 H.P. Lovecraft riff
The Endless (the pair direct jointly, with Benson doubling as writer and Moorhead as cinematographer).
The message is scrawled on a wall at one of the increasingly bizarre emergencies attended by paramedics and best pals Steve (Anthony Mackie) and Dennis (Jamie Dornan) – all of which prove to be linked to “designer drug” Synchronic.
Anthony Mackie in Synchronic
Credit:Patti Perret/Red Flower Films
Movie theaters are slowly reopening, but most of the new releases are headed to streaming services rather than the big screen. Whether you're staying at
Movie theaters are slowly reopening, but most of the new releases are headed to streaming services rather than the big screen. Whether you're staying at
102 mins
“The past sucks,” irate paramedic Steve (Anthony Mackie) says after time-travelling to said sucky past via a new synthetic drug, Synchronic.
Indeed, directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead have yet again turned a staple sci-fi trope (in this case, time travel) on its head in their latest thriller,
Synchronic, following the success of their last feature,
The Endless, which focussed on a UFO death cult and gave a whole new meaning to the word ‘trippy’.
Synchronic follows the aforementioned Steve and his best friend and paramedic partner Dennis (Jamie Dornan) who are traipsing through New Orleans’ dark drug-addicted underbelly, routinely facing overdose deaths with boring monotony. However, when legal synthetic drug ‘Synchronic’ finds its way onto the market, the deaths become more curious; with victims being impaled with ancient swords or receiving snake bits from species that have long left the state…