‘Sharper’ Review: A Solid Thriller That Only Attempts to Grift the Audience
Grifters gotta grift. That’s the main message of Apple TV Plus’ latest film, Sharper, and also the big disclaimer to keep in mind in pretty much every scene.
To provide plot details for a movie that intends to surprise the audience every five minutes is not only nearly impossible but also a disservice to the writers and the people behind the film. This is also the reason why the promotion for the film has barely included any specifics for the story, so I will restrain myself to the first few minutes of the film. We meet Justice Smith’s Tom, a young bookshop owner who starts dating Sandra (Briana Middleton) after she visits the store looking for a hardcover. Things suddenly get real when Sandra’s brother shows up back in her life again asking for a huge amount of money that he must pay back.
Sharper‘s best quality is, by far, its extremely talented cast. Smith and Middleton are joined by Julianne Monroe, John Lithgow, and Sebastian Stan, among others, who worked together to elevate a solid but not outstanding script. The film lives and dies on the premise that all appearances are deceiving, so the fun lies in trying to figure out what’s really going on, which makes the film all the more engaging with the audience, but at the same time, knowing there is a twist coming around the corner makes it all the more predictable and less satisfying by the end.
Twists are happening all throughout the film, and it’s at least appreciated that the filmmakers were bold enough to approach this as a drama thriller — Netflix’s Red Notice was similar in some aspects, but they went the route of making a comedy that doesn’t take itself too seriously and doesn’t ask the audience to either. But Sharper is significantly better than that, and perhaps most importantly, significantly scarier. As someone who would have definitely fallen for many of the dirty tricks that the characters pulled in the film, I know Sharper was effective because it made me rethink twice about some of my decisions and the people around me.
However, the problem with taking a more serious approach is that the audience will ask for more from the movie. In particular, in order for a film like this to fully work, the writers (Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka) have to be ten steps ahead of the audience. But if they figure out the trick every time, the film loses a lot of weight, and its intelligence is actually the biggest grift the movie pulled on us.
Nevertheless, Sharper is a fun ride that is made even more enjoyable by its witty cast — particularly, Julianne Monroe, who has been missing in action for the past few years (except for a couple of projects here and there). This is also Justice Smith’s best work to date; Middleton was quite good too — her role in George Clooney’s The Tender Bar was much more limited, so I enjoyed the freedom she was allowed here. The film is rather well organized (perhaps too well for its own good), but that meant putting aside certain characters throughout long periods of time — Julianne Monroe, for instance, takes her time to show up, though Sebastian Stan came to work during those days and tried to fill in the void of her awe-inducing presence in the meantime.
Overall, it’s not a must-watch, but if you have some free time on your hands this weekend and you don’t want to get up from your couch, Sharper is a nice piece of alternative programming to the multiversal shenanigans of Marvel’s latest adventure. It is currently streaming on Apple TV Plus.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
