Both an arthouse model of an old-school Lifetime movie and an unexpectedly tender take on A-list social-issue melodramas, Maryam Keshavarzs Viper Club starts with Susan Sarandons frazzled, desperate mother looking directly into the camera. Or rather, a camera one being held by folks out of frame, coaching her on how to properly address terrorists. Shes filming a ransom video to the men who have her grown son. Hes a war videographer, documenting the ongoing civil war in Syria; hes also been taken hostage. So she tells them that theyre going to get everything she has, the Feds have told her not to exchange money but shes going to anyway, just please dont hurt him. The voices offscreen offer suggestions. Theyve done this before. The woman just stares straight ahead. She looks like shes seconds away from falling apart.
This is the usually the kicking-off point for a Not Without My Daughter-style potboiler, in which Sarandons character her name is Helen, shes an experienced E.R. nurse would travel to Syria herself and turn into a maternal avenging angel. Instead, we witness her go through the daily grind at work, and get frustrated with the F.B.I. and the N.S.A. agents who keep throwing phrases like theres a protocol or with terrorists, we find that its better to go slowly at her. Occasionally, we see Helen argue with her M.I.A. boy, Andy (Julian Morris) in imaginary, one-sided conversations. Mostly, we watch her worry. This isnt politics its my son! she says early on. You cant accuse the movie of burying the lede.
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So when Andys girlfriend (Sheila Vand) passes her the number of someone belonging to a clandestine collective known as the Viper Club (I didnt come up with the name, the young woman says, shrugging), the helpless Helen calls. Soon, she finds herself face to face with another mom, played with sympathy and steely reserve by Edie Falco, who says she can help. Her son had once been taken as well, and now hes safe, sound and teaching out west. Plus one of Andys best friends and fellow hot-zone reporters, Sam (Matt Bomer), is a member as well. They lead her through a labyrinth of less-than-legal avenues, from making that unsanctioned ransom tape to hitting up former Ivy Leaguer mucky mucks for financial support. Bureaucratic red tape gets bypassed. Meanwhile, days pass and Andy is still M.I.A. .
Every time you think Viper Club is going to go full star vehicle or switch to a finger-pointing indictment on American involvement (or lack thereof) in foreign lands, the movie has a way of making a hard left into unexpectedly closer-to-home territory. Rage, not righteousness, is the mode here, but the muted, disbelieving, draining kind. Simple answers arent on the menu. No happy endings are guaranteed. As for Sarandon, shes not treating this role as a showcase for handwringing or how-low-can-you-go emoting. Its a steady, solid, grounded performance, one thats a ballast for the movie-matriarchal frustration and geopolitical timeliness. Shes a first-rate underplayer when she wants to be.
And yet, even as it continually strays off the conventional path of easy catharsis, the movie has a habit of wandering into bathos territory or tripping over its good character-study intentions. Keshavarzs 2011 debut Circumstance was a beautiful, sometimes brutal look at two women in love and bumping up against Irans socially oppressive, fundamentalist-friendly landscape you sensed she was not only an extremely talented filmmaker but one that could balance small moments with big statements. Viper Club isnt quite up to that level; its all haunting grace notes or hamfisted death grips with little in between. Theres just enough to make the film a cut above your average headline-driven drama and not quite enough to shoot it into the stratosphere.