Inheritance

Inheritance
Starring Phoebe Dynevor, Rhys Ifans, Ciara Baxendale, Kersti Bryan
Directed by Neil Burger

When you're an acclaimed filmmaker, you can sometimes do something out of the box because you know it won't really damage your reputation. Steven Soderbergh did this twice, by filming both "Unsane" and "High Flying Bird" entirely on iPhones, resulting in a unique perspective that worked. Now, it's "Limitless" and "The Illusionist" director Neil Burger's turn to tackle a film shot entirely on an iPhone, but unlike "Unsane"'s one-location setting, he goes worldwide with "Inheritance" - a by-the-books spy film that, at 101 minutes, makes you feel like you're trudging through "The Brutalist" in length, challenging your patience and motion sickness.

Maya (Phoebe Dynevor) is a free-spirited woman who doesn't have a job, and who goes day-to-day with an uncaring attitude, but when her mother suddenly dies she's thrust into a life she never expected. Meeting up with her estranged father Sam (Rhys Ifans), he offers her a lucrative job: work as a hostess for his business in Cairo - to which she accepts not just because of the money, but in the hopes of reconnecting with her father as well.

Not soon after, Maya learns that Sam's dealings are less than savory, as he goes by different names, and during one dinner she's asked to leave the restaurant quickly before Cairo police arrive. Sam is then kidnapped and Maya is forced to go to India to retrieve a document, otherwise Sam will die. Thrust into an international espionage whirlwind, Maya uses her street smarts and intellect to be more than just an unwitting pawn as she uncovers the truth behind everything.

While the premise sounds exciting and the method seems unique, "Inheritance" is essentially a basic, bare-bones spy caper that seems like it should've gone through some more rewrites to make it more appealing. As it is, it's a generic caper that thinks its smarter than it is, leaving audiences one step ahead of Maya the entire time as we know the beats to follow, shot with dizzying, nauseating manner that makes the "Bourne" movies look stinted by comparison.

As I was watching the movie, I wasn't invested at all in the story, but rather I wondered how they managed to pull it off. Shooting in Cairo, India, and Seoul, "Inheritance" was shot entirely on iPhones, and I wondered how people around them felt seeing it, or how they managed to pull it off in the first place. I couldn't care less about the story, and often found myself lost in my own thoughts before focusing back on the screen and thinking, "wow, it's still going." It offered nothing in the way of surprises or excitement, as Maya just wanders from one location to another, avoiding cops, and getting into one high-speed chase that would've had me in a barf bag if I had motion sickness.

The performances don't add to it, as Phoebe Dynevor's Maya is unlikable from the jump, and only becomes more insufferable as the movie progresses. Her dialogue is relegated to "let me talk to my father," "what do you want me to do?" and "where do I go?" over and over, and it's almost like there was no script at all, but she made up the majority of her dialogue. It's not exciting in the least, and the only thing the film has going for it is its ridiculous iPhone gimmick that grows stale after the first scene.

The Score: D-

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