Movie Review: Send Help

3 stars out of 5

I’ve been an admirer (cough, cough) of Rachel McAdams for 20+ years. But it was the combined presence of her and director Sam Raimi that convinced me to see Send Help. They last worked together in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and I thought that effort came together very well.

Here, McAdams is Linda Liddle, nebbishy loner but a numbers whiz at her finance job, where she’s just been passed over for a promised promotion to VP. However, 24’s President David Palmer, just before cashing his paycheck for a glorified cameo, convinces dickhead young boss Brad (Dylan O’Brien) to bring Linda along on an important trip to Asia. And just like in 2005’s Red Eye, McAdams finds herself on a very troubled flight.

Linda and Brad realize they are the only survivors of the plane crash on some remote island. But here, Survivor superfan/wannabe contestant Linda thrives with her mad skills regarding food and shelter, and busted-leg Brad is the weak one. In the hands of an anonymous director, this could be a really crummy role-reversal-revenge movie. But good ol’ Sam Raimi knows how to make it fun and funny. A scene with McAdams hunting a wild boar is a particular highlight.

Alas, Raimi didn’t write this movie (and hasn’t written one since 2009’s Drag Me to Hell). And the screenwriting duo Damian Shannon and Mark Swift (who have only previously scripted movies about Freddy, Jason, and Baywatch) – if you’ll excuse the metaphor – don’t know how to land this plane once they have it up in the air. They want to add another twist but the plot gets away from them, and the second half of the movie meanders.

Overall, it’s still entertaining enough as an indictment of corporate bro culture and as a you-shouldn’t-assume-things-about-people survival horror comedy. But next time Shannon and Swift get a screenplay greenlit… send help.