Thomas is a man in his forties who is suffering from the pain of a breakup, living a monotonous and emotionless life. Suddenly, he is invited to participate in a Dark Web game to win 1 million.

The rules are simple: he will be the prey of hunters for 30 days, he cannot be attacked if he is accompanied by someone else and, if he survives for a month, he wins the grand prize. He will be filmed the entire time and all the places he frequents have been bugged.

Thomas immediately accepts the contract, believing that his family will support him in this challenge.

Is Self Reliance good?

When I saw the teaser being released by HULU, I immediately got excited. After all, a film produced by The Lonely Island (producers of the films Palms Springs and Popstar: never stop never stopping), featuring Nick Miller (Jake Johnson’s character in New Girl) and Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg’s character in Brooklyn 99), could only offer a good comedy. Unfortunately, we don’t see this potential being used here.

Although the premise is very interesting and at the beginning it makes us a little curious, throughout the film, we can feel how much the script gets lost in its own pretentiousness.

From the beginning, we know that Thomas is not a reliable narrator/character. After all, it’s not the first time he’s made up unrealistic stories that make his own family doubt his sanity. This is a fact that drags on and serves as the basis for the entire development of the film.

The problem, however, is that there comes a point when this narrative becomes tiresome. The lack of laughter, combined with fatigue, slowly leads us to a disinterest that not even the possibility of a romance can save.

The addition of Anna Kendrick’s character does not come with a romantic touch here, it is just a plot device being planted to try to make us laugh eventually and to force the growth of the main character. Although it works well for the second thing, unfortunately, the humorous aspect of her participation, once again, is not relevant to the story.

The impression we have is that in the last 20 or 30 minutes of the film, when we should start to get our answers, we are surprised with more questions. And the ending… well, it is not enough to answer everything.

The script for Self Reliance had everything to be a gem in the world of unfunny comedies that have been released in recent years, but in the end, we have the feeling that something is still missing. As if we were presented with an unfinished project, without the final touches on the script.

On the other hand, if we have a weak script here, Jake Johnson did a great job directing some scenes, especially the scenes with “the ninjas” which, despite being humorous in nature, brought a slight element of humor and a little chill down our necks before making us laugh.

Overall, Self Reliance is a 3-point film, worth watching when we don’t have many expectations and there’s nothing better to play.

Watch the Trailer:

For now, the film Self Reliance is not yet available on any Brazilian platform, but it should be distributed by Star+ soon.

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