‘Manhattan Dead End’ recovers the essence of the best police thriller of the 70s in one of Chadwick Boseman’s latest works
Although it seems like it was yesterday, We are approaching the fourth anniversary of the sad death of Chadwick Boseman. Despite having a career whose beginnings date back to the beginning of the century, when his work focused on the world of television, and making the definitive leap to cinema in 2012, it was not until he signed for Marvel Studios to give life to Black Panther when the actor became the star we remember today.
In the last three years of his life, and if we exclude from the equation his brief – but decisive – role in ‘Captain America: Civil War’, Boseman fell in love with half the world with his superhero role in ‘Black Panther’ and the two ‘Avengers’. that closed the Infinity Saga, and with their collaboration with Spike Lee on the notable ‘Da 5 Bloods’. However, in reviewing his filmography, one of his last titles to reach our screens usually remains in the pipeline.
A hidden gem
This was released under the title ‘Manhattan without exit’ – ’21 bridges’ -; a crime thriller with a charming spirit pulp that evokes the great references of the genre of the seventies while condenses in 100 minutes a cocktail of action and intrigue of those that leave you rooted to the seat. A story without technical, formal and narrative pretensions in which simplicity is directly proportional to its forcefulness and the craftsmanship of the team responsible.
As English speakers would say, we could classify ‘Dead End Manhattan’ with the label of sleeper; one of those productions released “undercover” and that end up seeing its low profile converted into one of the best surprises of its respective cinematographic course. One of the main people responsible for the achievement, as it could not be otherwise, is its director Brian Kirk, who projected efficiency and know-how in the feature film which he demonstrated in series such as ‘Game of Thrones’ and ‘Penny Dreadful’.
With great restraint and without sensationalism, Kirk immerses us in the New York geography, capturing the essence of the Big Apple despite having filmed in Philadelphia and taking advantage of the harshness of the urban environment and its amalgamation of glass, metal and concrete to contain bursts of violence, some good old-school suspense, and some unexpectedly solid dramatic arcs for main characters played with equal success by Boseman, Sienna Miller and a JK Simmons as inspired as usual.
However, if something forces me to recommend this film with such fervor, it is the way in which it overcomes the fact that it is built on clichés and common places and is as subtle as a point-blank shotgun blast to the chest. Thanks to a precise montage like a Swiss watch courtesy of Tim Murrell, which breathes an overwhelming rhythm into the narrativeand a certain aura of nostalgia towards an increasingly less common cinema, ‘Manhattan without Exit’ continues to be one of the great recent references within its category.
If you want to enjoy this electrifying candy, you only have a few days left to do so on Amazon Prime Video, since leaves its catalog next June 19.
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