Encounter
AMAZONA trajectory as grand and impressive as Riz Ahmed was bound to flag down at some point. Encounter is that. It is the brief tumble before sure-fire, permanent stardom. All the greats have had it: from Colin Firth and Gary Oldman appearing in submarine-based features just after nabbing themselves a nod at the Academy Awards to those that took the award and ran into obscurity, like Mira Sorvino. Those batting for Ahmed must surely hope for the former. One aquatic adventure is better than a lifetime starring in features like The Girl Who Believes in Miracles. Is it? Probably. Especially for someone with promise and charm as good as Ahmed, although it is unthinkable when seeing him star in Encounter, a strange and feral feature from Michael Pearce.
It is not the star at the heart of this one that causes the problems, at least. Ahmed tries his best to fix what he can, but Encounter is exploring the dud notes of a dead genre. Aliens haven’t been scary since the 1950s. They jumped the shark right around Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull hobbled along on its merry way to cultural disillusionment. Tackling aliens at such a strange and interchangeable time for the dying subgenre is like the efforts of those brave few every year that weaponise the western genre. A bold move for Pearce, whose capable hands behind the camera is enough to craft a solid feature, but not enough to make use of the alien invasion subgenre.
As impressive Encounter may be at times, it does not have that grand impression so many of Ahmed’s other features have. His role as Malik Khan siphons out a decent performance, but one that is tackling the bloated rot of so many different meanings and impressions. The father figure, the teacher, and the decorated hero of America shunned by his country and on the run. Encounter bites off far more than it can chew, and most of it is shoved down the throat of a capable leading man. Unfair that may be, Ahmed is up for a challenge. Coming off the back of both Sound of Metal and Mogul Mowgli, his unstoppable, inevitable rise is promising. Encounter is a slight bump in the road, nothing more than that. It is not as endearing or emotive as his other roles from recent years, but it does little for his action-oriented image that he failed to conjure up in his early career with Centurion and Ill Manors. It did not suit him then, nor does it now.
Sophisticated this is not. But as far as unsophisticated alien invasion features go, Encounter is comfortable in the safety of not trying much else. It is not trying to reinvent a particularly broken wheel, one that lost its grip in the 1950s, nor does it lean into those all that much. Ahmed is a solid draw, as is Octavia Spencer. Two powerhouses lead this feature, but neither is up to the task of salvaging much more than a passable viewing experience. They’re good, but they’re not that good. A shame too, since Ahmed in a leading role and Spencer supporting that is a golden draw that should never be wasted. It’s just a shame that Pearce does just that. A wasted, golden opportunity to show the dexterity of a leading man in a genre so bloated and unconventional in the modern field that to show it is a strange and alien case.