Fantasia Fest 2021 - INDEMNITY (2021)

Fantasia Fest 2021
Indemnity (2021)
Written and directed by Travis Taute
Starring Jerrid Geduld, Gail Mabalane, Andre Jacobs
Running time 2 hours, 4 minutes
Currently unrated by contains scenes of tension and violent action, also they reveal that the tooth fairy isn’t real

By Hunter Bush

At first glance, Indemnity reminded me of the 1990s, the kind of mid-level thriller that would inevitably end up in a near-constant rotation on some channel like TNT. My youth was overstuffed with these kinds of flicks, which I think of as “briefcase/gun movies”, where no matter which item you expected the movie to have, it would invariably have more of the other than you were expecting. The Firm for instance seems like it’s gonna be all board meetings and characters yelling at each other across expensive wooden tables, then all of the sudden Gary Busey is being gunned down like a 3rd rate Alex Murphy! Indemnity looked like a classic briefcase/gun movie: lots of dialogue alluding to corporate intrigue, and some exciting-looking action beats. Ultimately it’s balanced more on the Action side of things, but still feels like the ‘90s.

We’re thrown into the plot right off the bat with a lot of good corporate espionage and raised stakes as Sam (Abduragman Adams) receives secret info from a dead drop taped underneath a public bench which leads to him narrowly avoiding being murdered by some mercenaries. Sam has access to a list from a company called M Tech but doesn’t know what they have in common besides that they’re turning up dead one by one. The next name on the list is our main character Theo (Jerrid Geduld), a Cape Town Fire & Rescue firefighter recently on forced leave after a failed rescue attempt left him with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Theo is an inherently interesting choice as a character to anchor your film around because he’s unlikeable, though sympathetic. The PTSD and his resistance to seek help for it, is ruining his life. His only coping mechanism is drinking, making him increasingly more withdrawn and violent towards his wife Angela (Nicole Fortuin) and son Wesley (Qaeed Patel). When Sam reaches out to contact Theo he gets Angela who happens to be a reporter, but their meet-up puts Angela and Theo on the mysterious bad guys’ radar and the next thing you know Theo wakes up next to his dead wife with cops at the door. As Theo is forced to go on the run to clear his name, and to find out why he was framed in the first place, the bodies start to pile up and things really settle nicely into that ‘90s action movie groove.

Turns out however, that’s a bit of a double-edged sword. For all the sort of fun potboiler-y/wronged-man thrills Indemnity lifts from the era of grunge music and Crystal Pepsi, writer/director Travis Taute just can’t make them jibe with the more modern action movie elements. Modern action flicks have a greater focus on fight choreography and Geduld doesn’t move like an action star. He’s a bit on the small side for starters. Not a dealbreaker obviously - Tom Cruise, the most bankable action star of all time, is only 5’7”, but what Cruise brings to a fight scene that Geduld doesn’t show here is physical intensity. To be fair, Cruise’s action characters usually have a combat background, which Theo doesn’t necessarily have, but the choice to make Theo more of a grappler/brawler (if it is a choice) makes the fight scenes underwhelming.

My other big issue with Indemnity is the run time. This could easily have been done in a lean 90 minutes if the flick wasn’t so divided into either “plot scenes” or “action scenes”. The fact that there’s a sequence at a hotel that is actually both proves that Taute knows it can be done and just chose mostly not to do it. The result then, is a saggy middle focused on the underwhelming fight scenes or scenes where one character restates the plot outline to another character, but adds no new information meaning the audience is left checking their watches (or twitter). The latter problem is baffling because the final 20-25 minutes of the movie is one plot-heavy parlor scene that should be the finale after another. One of these would feel appropriately disorienting and twisty, which Taute is going for, but this gets exhausting. My one note actually says “This movie knows it’s allowed to end, right?”

The movie ultimately has a message about PTSD and allowing yourself to get help, which is definitely worthwhile, but the route we take to get there is a little meandering.

Indemnity screened as part of Fantasia Fest 2021. Check for availability.
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