The Gorge Is A Genre-Bending Thriller With Too Much On Its Plate

For a film that focuses on two elite snipers, The Gorge could stand to hone its focus. The Scott Derrickson film is a feverish blend of the director’s favored genres, sampling from horror, pulpy action, heady science fiction, and even romance. And while there’s no shortage of pulpy thrills in The Gorge — packed as it is with one bonkers twist after the next — for all its exciting ideas, one major ingredient seems to be missing: a sense of restraint.

The film kicks off as a grounded action thriller, introducing us to ex-Marine Levi (Miles Teller) and Lithuanian sharpshooter Drasa (Anya Taylor-Joy) in the midst of their lonely lives. Each are among the best in their profession, with hundreds of confirmed kills between them. And save for Drasa’s dying father, neither has any friends or family that’d miss them if they disappeared. It makes them the perfect candidates for an off-the-books mission somewhere in the wilderness, each manning a watchtower on opposite sides of a seemingly bottomless gorge.

The mystery at the center of the film keeps The Gorge from finding any momentum early on. Its first act is chock full of tedious conversations, from Levi’s first meeting with a “high level spook” (played by Sigourney Weaver) who’s clearly calling the shots, to his debrief with the soldier (Ṣọpẹ́ Dirisu) who manned the tower before him. It’s in the latter that Levi learns as much as he can about his ultra-secret mission: each year the tower gets a new steward, a highly-trained operative from one of the “western territories” designed to keep up its defenses. For 365 days, Levi will patrol the surrounding area, restock the guns positioned along the gorge, and most importantly, keep the creatures that dwell in its depths — the “Hollow Men” — from getting out. His predecessor can’t really tell him anything about the gorge, its origins, their employers, or the consequences of failure. All that matters is that he neutralizes any Hollow Men he encounters, and maintains strict “no contact” rules with his counterpart in the eastern tower.

It doesn’t take long for Levi to break that last rule, though not for lack of trying. Drasa, stationed in the tower right across from him, just happens to have a stronger will. They communicate via written messages and binoculars, playing chess (in a not-so-subtle homage to The Queen’s Gambit, Taylor-Joy’s breakout role), dancing to music, and practicing their sniper skills. When the Hollow Men do eventually emerge, tipping The Gorge ever-so-slightly into horror territory, the film finally thrums to life. But the threat they pose is all too brief: our story remains laser-focused on its slow-burning, long-distance romance, robbing it of its natural momentum.

Given Teller and Taylor-Joy’s respective charisma, the love story at the center of The Gorge isn’t too difficult to sit through. And it gets better once our star-crossed snipers eventually cross the divide to spend real time together. Taylor-Joy is clearly having a lot of fun as Drasa, and she brings an explosive, bad-ass quality to the character that buoys the film when it needs it the most. Teller is in a more somber role as Levi, but he’s no less charming. They’re well-cast and capable action leads — it’s just a shame that The Gorge abandons any semblance of character development as it pitches into a new genre.

Early in the film, the gorge is described as “the door to Hell,” and Derrickson does inevitably explore that idea to its fullest extent. The Hollow Men are just one of the many horrors plaguing Drasa and Levi’s mission, and watching them battle Lovecraftian beasts is admittedly a lot of fun. The Gorge’s creature design makes good on a lot of tedious build-up, even if some shoddier visual effects take away their power. For all the clever worldbuilding, the second half of The Gorge just feels like a completely different film. It lives somewhere between an Annihilation homage and a Resident Evil remake — and Derrickson just can’t seem to reconcile that supernatural beat with the boots-on-the-ground conspiracy that The Gorge also wants to be.

It’s not a stretch to say that Derrickson bites off more than he can chew here. At a little over two hours, The Gorge is a genre-blending thriller without any of the necessary cohesion. The story by Tomorrow War and Fast X scribe Zach Dean feels like three movies rolled into one, frequently referencing better sci-fi and action, rather than exploring new territory.

The Gorge has a lot of big ideas. The chief issue comes with its failure to actually blend any of the genres it’s interested in.

The Gorge streams on February 14 on Apple TV+.