Once upon a time, you might go to the action section of your local video store and come upon a movie that you had never heard of before that seemed like a completely anonymous potboiler, but which nevertheless boasted the names—well, the last names—of your favorite icons of the genre in big bold letters. Based on that, you might decide to take a chance on it, bring it home and discover to your vague annoyance that not only was the film just as generic and forgettable as it appeared but the stars were actually relatives of those better-known performers—a Mike Norris or a Frank Stallone or a Shemp Bronson—instead of the legends hinted at on the box art. For those of you who remember falling into this trap for yourselves, “Alarum” will seem like an all-too-familiar experience with two key differences, one good and one awkward. On the one hand, since actual video stores are a rarity these days and streaming is all the rage, you don’t have to worry about adding insult to injury by accruing a late fine or rewind fee this time around. On the other hand, there is the disconcerting discovery that while the “EASTWOOD” promised in the large type is actually Clint’s son, Scott, it turns out that the “STALLONE” being offered up here is actually Sly himself, doing things that I cannot imagine that he is especially proud of.
Scott Eastwood and Willa Fitzgerald play Joe and Laura, a pair of government spies who met and fell in love while on a mission, went rogue from their respective agencies and got married. When the story picks up with them five years after that initial meeting, they are in Poland for what ostensibly appears to be a vacation when a plane crashes in the woods near the resort where they are staying. While investigating the wreck, Joe comes across a mysterious flash drive—don’t ask where he finds it—and before too long, he finds himself under siege from a couple of groups who want the drive for themselves, one a group of hired guns led by the fearsome Orin (Mike Colter) and another from Joe’s former agency, who fear that his departure was due to him joining Alarum, a top-secret organization dedicated to bringing down the global intelligence network, and who fear what might happen if they get a hold of the drive. Now separated, both Joe and Laura—who is part of Alarum—must fight off hordes of gunmen while trying to reunite with each other. Also factoring into the equation is Chester (Sylvester Stallone), a one-time colleague who has been sent to take Joe out but who seems willing to help his old friend blow lots of stuff up along the way.
At least that is what I think happened—between the haphazard nature of the material and the indifferent manner in which it has been handled, the details have already begun escaping my mind and I am writing these words less than an hour after I finished watching it. The screenplay by Alexander Vesha is one of those contraptions that somehow manages to be overly confusing and wildly predictable at the same time. Even the action scenes are nothing to write home about, thanks to their indifferent staging and the exceedingly chintzy CGI effects, especially the laughably unconvincing gunshots on constant display.
As for the human element, such as it is, neither Eastwood nor Fitzgerald are given much of anything of interest to do—this is especially distressing in the case of the latter, given that this film comes on the heels of her fairly spectacular turn in last year’s delightfully twisty thriller “Strange Darling.” Then there is Stallone, whose presence is presumably what will drive whatever interest that this film might generate. Seeing him deploying his still-considerable screen presence to an enterprise as lazy and hackneyed as this in exchange for a quick paycheck is about as depressing as it was when Bruce Willis was doing the same thing a few years ago. (Indeed, one of the producers here has a lot of the Willis movies on his resume.) To say that he is just going through the motions here would be to wildly overstate the case—his work here makes his appearance in “The Expendables 4” seem focused and committed by comparison.
The closest thing to an actual surprise—and not exactly a pleasant one—on display during the entirety of “Alarum” comes during the opening credits when it is revealed that this nonsense was directed by Michael Polish, who once upon a time made such quirky, fascinating and unclassifiable indie films. Those projects—especially the extraordinary “Northfork”—demonstrated a filmmaker with a clear, distinct and utterly unique vision but since clear, distinct and utterly unique visions are not exactly celebrated in the filmmaking world these days, he has since been grinding out one nondescript effort after another, most recently ones top lining such alleged cancel culture victims as Mel Gibson and Gina Carano. If “Alarum” had been directed by either a complete novice or a total hack, maybe some of its grievous cinematic sins could have been forgiven or at least tolerated. However, to see those same sins committed by someone who has shown that they are capable of good and interesting work takes what could have merely been a dopey exercise in fenderheaded filmmaking and transforms it into a deeply depressing one.