My Cultural Diet

Given its premise, The Gorge could’ve and should’ve been a lot weirder and a lot cooler than it turned out to be. Two snipers, an American (Miles Teller) and a Lithuanian (Anya Taylor-Joy), are sent on a bizarre and secretive mission: monitoring a mysterious gorge in the middle of nowhere to prevent whatever might be lurking in its depths from escaping. Posted on opposite sides of the gorge, they’re forbidden from contacting each other, presumably for purposes of compartmentalization. Of course, they spend the first half of the movie disregarding that particular order — think of it as a meet cute with sniper rifles — only for all hell to break loose in the second half. Well, sort of. While Teller and Taylor-Joy are likable enough protagonists, The Gorge stumbles when the truth of their mission is finally revealed. Of all the directions the film could’ve taken in its final act, it opts for a pretty underwhelming one. I don’t think there was any chance The Gorge was going to land in theaters, but it could’ve become a modern cult classic had it opted for something less predictable and more bizarre.

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