Philip Barantini’s newest film lacks the technical mastery and power of his last, but still delivers thrills with an important social message.
★★★✰✰
Actor-turned-director Philip Barantini seemed to appear out of nowhere with his 2021 masterpiece Boiling Point. One of the best films that the 2020s has so far had to offer, Barantini’s next film was always going to be placed in a difficult position, regardless of its focus. With Accused, Barantini successfully steps up to the challenge, delivering a clean-cut thriller infused with social commentary. However, the film ultimately fails to reach the dizzying heights of Boiling Point. Accused can be clumsy at times, and faces some of the typical repetitiveness of the home-invasion sub-genre, but has some seriously intense sequences.
Accused follows Harri Bavshar, a young British Asian man, who is visiting his parent’s house to home-sit. When a terrorist attack takes place nearby, Harri is thankful to get away to his parent’s house for safety. That is until he finds himself the target of a ravenous online witch-hunt, one in which Harri is believed to be the terrorist responsible for the earlier attack.
Let’s focus on the good first. Chaneil Kular gives a great lead-performance despite the challenges that come with spending much of the runtime alone, often remaining silent. Kular radiates star-power and sets the tone throughout Accused, effectively capturing the terror of Harri’s ordeal. The script, written by James Cummings (who co-wrote the script for Boiling Point alongside Barantini) and Barnaby Boulton, is solid for the most part. The premise of the film is not only unique but frighteningly believable, setting the stage for an interesting story. The way that the script tackles mob justice, racism, and issues with social media is mature and carefully measured, allowing these themes to be explored without feeling forced. The naturalistic dialogue is (mostly) believable too. Some early scenes between Harri and his girlfriend Chloe leave a little to be desired, but they’re tolerable.
Now, for the less impressive elements of the film. Most notable is the film’s pacing. The trouble with a majority of home-invasion thrillers is that, quite quickly, they become repetitive. Unfortunately, though it does try to avoid becoming stale, Accused falls victim to this genre-specific problem. Once Harri is forced into quiet hiding by his attackers, he must remain there for the most part. The film sees him check the CCTV, try to quieten his dog, and then hide multiple times—the character being stuck in a cycle. Before that even, Harri checks social media for updates on the bombing, becomes frightened by what he sees regarding himself, stops looking, and then returns to it. This is more believable, but still becomes repetitive after the first few cycles. This repetitiveness causes the film’s pacing to feel very start-stop. The film will speed along before suddenly crashing backwards to a moment we feel have already experienced—dispelling the tension. There isn’t enough variation in these cycles to make them as tense as they could be.
The same can be said for other elements of the film—which feel prematurely introduced. Of course, set-up and pay-off is a necessary part of (satisfying) scriptwriting, but it isn’t done with enough care here. Instead, each time one of these elements is introduced, it is fairly obvious that it will be used later on. An example would be Harri’s parents’ alarm system. The second that it is mentioned, the camera moves into a close-up and it is (too) apparent that it’ll be important later. The same can be said for the mention of the rickety treehouse. It would be so much more satisfying had there been more subtlety to the introduction of these elements. The film would have been more unpredictable, and therefore much more intense.
The film is helped along by its smaller parts, however. Its score, which is never forced into the forefront, is quietly effective. It warbles and drones in the background, building the tense atmosphere. The film also makes an important point to portray the lack of help from the police, and it goes out of its way to question mainstream news sources as well as social media witch-hunting. These small social points help to round the film and to make it more poignant and true-to-life. That poignancy is helped further by nuanced moments when Harri mourns what he has had to do to survive. There is no epic, victorious fanfare to celebrate his actions as he tries to survive. Instead, there is a quiet sadness to it all beneath the tension. It is in nuances like these where the film shows its intelligence.
Overall, Accused is a solid, tense home-invasion film. It has important points to make about mob justice, contemporary racism, and social media, and these themes are handled with enough care to make them worthy of note. The script can be sloppy at times, but the leading performance from Kular makes up for those weaker moments. This is an extremely tense film, likely to be a cult favourite among fans of socially-aware thrillers. It isn’t perfect, but it’s solid enough to warrant watching.
The Verdict
Philip Barantini’s follow-up to the wildly successful Boiling Point is solid but flawed. Chaneil Kular gives a terrific, commanding performance, but the script has enough issues that some of the potential of the film is undermined. Still, Barantini is a director with great potential due to his terrific ways of evoking tension.
Words by Reece Beckett
Accused will begin streaming on Netflix on the 22nd of September.
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