THE GATES Review

No jokey or rambly preamble from me today; just a quick reminder to make sure to get your regularly scheduled health screenings.

This might be particularly rich coming from me, as I avoid going to the doctor like it is the plague, but a few years ago I had a strange chest pain issue come up, and I was quick to schedule a stress test to make sure everything was on the up-and-up within me (it was!).

But also: I'm 45 now, and I have been putting off getting a physical because I know they will want me to do a colonoscopy. I'm not... scared of the procedure, per se. But the prep sounds like a nightmare. And who has the time to take a day off to go get it done, right? I have work to do!

But it's a very important health screening for someone of my age, and I really ought to get it done before the year is out. I typically get my physical in October, so maybe I'll schedule it for then again.

I say this because we tend to look at celebrities and see larger-than-life figures who have all the best of everything. The best lives. The best houses. The best healthcare. And yet, too many of them pass away from conditions that were possibly preventable.

Chadwick Boseman died at a younger age than I am of colon cancer. If the screening age was younger, could they have caught it in time to save him? Who knows? But that type of cancer is generally regarded as preventable, so it seems possible. And just earlier this year, James Van Der Beek tragically passed from colorectal cancer. Again... you think of stars as being rich enough or powerful enough or something enough to bypass or cure these concerns, but obviously... not so much.

I bring this all up because Van Der Beek is the topic of today's article. One of his last movies (if not his very last) recently debuted on Amazon Prime. He starred as a pastor who is willing to kill to keep a secret in The Gates.

The Gates is about three young black men heading out on the town for a night of partying. When a traffic jam threatens to derail their plans, they take a shortcut that leads to a gated community. Trapped by the gates and looking for help to get out, they wander up to the pastor's home and catch a glimpse of him killing a woman inside.

From there, their night is turned upside down as they desperately try to escape and get help before the highly influential man of god gets his hands on them.

TWO UPS AND TWO DOWNS

+ Mason Gooding and James Van Der Beek do great work as two of the leads here. Van Der Beek is in one of his final roles in this one, and he is giving a strong performance despite what has to have been dwindling health. I'm not used to seeing him play an antagonist, and he definitely had the chops for it here. He is menacing and slimy, and despite the fact that he's a crowd favorite, he's easy to root against.

Gooding is playing a naive young man who sees the best in a society that refuses to see the best in him sometimes because of the color of his skin. He develops from beginning to end and continues to prove he is one of Hollywood's bright young stars. I was disappointed he turned up in Scream 7 this year and didn't hold out in support of his other co-stars, but he still has the goods as a performer.

+ The movie shifts gears without ever feeling like it takes any unnatural turns. It starts off with every racial story arc in the book as Derrick and his friends encounter questioning police officers and scared white folk in the state of Texas. The movie is heavy-handed in its early approach to telling a tale of racism and prejudice.

Over time, though, it becomes a cat-and-mouse thriller between them and Jacob, the pastor. And while the racial aspects are respected throughout, the movie ends up being more tense around a murder plot than anything else. So it takes a little bit of time to set up the world and the situation in which our protagonists find themselves, then it builds the drama around them. All in all, well managed.

- There's no new ground broken here, and this is a pretty standard suspense movie with an against-the-odds survival attempt against a sociopathic threat. The story and its beats are relatively basic for such a movie, and it plays a lot of the hits. You can pretty readily predict what is going to happen from moment to moment.

This is not to say I didn't enjoy The Gates; I did by-and-large. But just that it wasn't something I would say that the majority of people need to rush out and stream right away unless they really want to see the strong turn from Van Der Beek in a role alien to him. 

- Keith Powers and Alge Smith play Tyon and Kevin, Derrick's friends who get caught up with him in the danger. And they are fine! I'm not knocking them as actors, but they felt like they were getting dominated for screen presence by Gooding and Van Der Beek, who are both so good here. These two, by comparison, are just adequate. Especially Powers, who is playing his role a little too subdued for me. He just feels too passive with the exception of a scene or two, maybe because he is the bridge character between Derrick's optimism and Kevin's hardened soul. But regardless, I was having a hard time feeling engaged by his character. 

OVERALL

The Gates is a solid, if not particularly amazing, suspense thriller about racial prejudices in an affluent community. It may not be rediscovering the globe or anything, but Gooding and Van Der Beek make it a worthwhile watch since you are likely already paying for Amazon Prime.

🍿SCORE = 63/100