Burn (Movie Review)

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

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PLOT: When the Paradise Pumps gas station is held at gunpoint by a petty thief, a psychologically unhinged clerk named Melinda (Tilda Cobham-Hervey) goes to great lengths of lunacy to ensure her survival.

REVIEW: It’s been quite the month for promising new horror filmmaker Mike Gan, whose feature debut film SCHOOL SPIRIT, a middling slasher cross between THE BREAKFAST CLUB and PSYCHO, served as the penultimate episode of Hulu Original’s Into the Dark series in early August. Due in select theaters just three weeks later on August 23rd is Gan’s speedy follow-up BURN, an equally mediocre outcome which functions less as a gripping heist thriller and more as a mildly captivating character study of a young woman, Melinda, on the brink of severe psychological slippage. Thing is, there aren’t many central characters in the film to begin with, and even less to really side with in hope of truly making it out alive, never mind triumph. This includes Melinda herself. Instead, we’re given a fairly amusing if oddly confounding look at a simple heist gone horribly awry, and the ways in which Melinda attempts to use her quasi-insane, duplicitous sociopathic tendencies for her own survival. Unfortunately, without a compelling protagonist to genuinely care for – one who not only knows wrong from right and acts accordingly, but also boasts a magnetic personality as well – all we’re really left to cling to is a tremendous central performance by Cobham-Hervey, who outshines with a rivetingly nuanced turn as a deranged lunatic subsisting on her weird and wicked wits and wiles. Indeed, what BURN lacks in rooting interests and terrifying dramatic action it makes up for with Cobham-Hervey’s incendiary work. However, when the entire temperature is taken, BURN is far more tepid than it bills itself as!

The film opens and stays for its 80-minute duration at Paradise Pumps gas station at nighttime. Two attendants are on duty, Melinda (Cobham-Hervey), a withdrawn weirdo who enjoys burning her fingers in piping hot coffee, and Sheila (Suki Waterhouse), a bored an unimpressed looker who teases Melinda for her odd behavior. The kind of behavior we instantly sense is a bit off; Melinda likes to make useless small talk to strangers who couldn’t care less, offer pistachio refunds to unenthused shoppers, and in general overstep her boundaries with a sense of sociopathy. Melinda and Sheila don’t particularly get along, yet are forced to work together throughout their graveyard shift. Sheila teases Melinda for having an unreciprocated crush on Officer Liu (Harry Shum Jr.), a rookie cop on his first night alone on the job. As the night wears on and a smattering of customers come through, Melinda and Sheila’s night is upended with the arrival of Billy (Josh Hutcherson), a denim-clad cowboy type looking to lift some cash in order to pay outstanding debts to a biker gang. When Billy pulls a pistol and demands the safe and registers be emptied, an unpredictable skein of events transpires.

It’s hard to proceed from here without betraying too much of the plot, but suffice it to say, Melinda soon turns the tables on not just Billy, but Sheila as well. One of the things I like a great deal about BURN is how it hews to one location and makes it inherently interesting for the entire runtime. Aspects of the station itself are wisely woven into the plot, such as using gas cans, surveillance video, automatic security doors, back storage rooms, etc., all of which feel germane to the story rather than contrived or forcefully shoehorned in. I always appreciate movies that maintain a consistent entertainment value in a single setting, and here Gan uses the Paradise Pumps locale with a level of imagination that keeps the story engaging. Again though, an enthralling story only amounts to a mere exercise if the characters inhabiting said story are all thoroughly detestable. Melinda, our apparent protagonist, is so irredeemably weird and does so many despicable things along the way, that it becomes harder and harder to support her actions, even if done out of what she thinks is a necessity. I’m all for complex character studies, and central ones at that, but there has to be a righteous sense of goodness that outweighs the evil in the end, otherwise what happens is we end up liking Billy, the stickup man, more than anyone else. In the attempt to make Melinda turn her very method of self-destruction into a source of salvation (the poster irksomely gives away the movies ending by the way), her supportability is sacrificed.

But that’s not to take anything away from Cobham-Hervey’s sterling turn as Melinda, which, again, is the strongest part of the picture. While we sense Melinda is a tad off from the first few frames, the way in which Cobham-Hervey portrays the character slowly losing her sanity is a quite a sight to behold. Whether it’s the faraway, loopy, not-quite-there glint in her eyes, her increasingly sweaty façade, or the way she uses her nervous energy and body language to manipulate the other characters, Melinda is a fascinating character that operates outside of the traditional protagonist-antagonist dynamic. The other performances are almost as strong, with Waterhouse again playing another bitchy, better-than-everyone type we’ve seen her do in ASSASSINATION NATION and NEW YEAR, NEW YOU. I think many would be stunned to know Waterhouse is actually a British model with a disarming smile, as she’s mastered spoiled American brat accents to the point of being unfairly typecast by now. And as I said before, Hutcherson as Billy may be the most likeable of all the characters, despite his untoward intentions. He brings a charisma sorely lacking in the other two, not mention moments of much needed levity to lighten the spirit of an otherwise grim experience.

On the whole, BURN is a well crafted single-setting exercise that offers a fascinating glimpse into the unraveling mind of a psychosocial outcast. However, with nobody to really relate to, BURN torches our sympathies and leaves us pondering the meaning of it all.