A One Mann’s Movies review of “Weapons” (2025, 4.5*, 18).
I wouldn’t normally do this, but if you haven’t yet seen “Weapons” then I’d urge you to STOP reading this review right here. For many films, if you watch the trailer; you read my “Plot Summary”; or you read my review (even though I try to keep them reasonably spoiler free) then it doesn’t really make much of a difference to your enjoyment of the film. “Weapons” is not one of those films. If you can try to go into the film as cold as possible, then that will be the optimum viewing experience.
OK, who’s left then?
Since I’ve made that upfront warning, I will not quite be holding back as much as usual in talking about the inner workings of the plot.
So, you have been WARNED! Spoilerific comments ahead.
Plot:
Justine (Julia Garner) is a relatively new teacher at an elementary school in a small town. One morning, she turns up for work and finds only one of her 18 pupils sat in the classroom. The other 17 young children all mysteriously got up in the middle of the night, at exactly 2:17am, and ran off into the night, “never to be seen again”. As the police fail to turn up any clues as to what happened, the town’s folk turn against Justine, demanding answers.
Certification:
UK: 18; US: R. (From the BBFC web site: “Strong bloody violence, gore”.)
Talent:
Starring: Julia Garner, Josh Brolin, Alden Ehrenreich, Cary Christopher, Benedict Wong, Amy Madigan.
Directed by: Zach Cregger.
Written by: Zach Cregger.
Running Time: 2h 8m.
Summary:
Positives:
- An extremely clever piece of episodic storytelling with intersecting timelines.
- A brilliant central performance by Julia Garner.
- An outlandish but memorable supporting performance by Amy Madigan as Gladys.
- Jump scares that ACTUALLY made me jump!
Negatives:
- The police force seem to be utterly incompetent.
- One could argue that, in terms of tonality, this film is all over the place.
Full Review of “Weapons”:
Is it a mystery? Is it a horror? Is it a black comedy?
Let’s start with the potential negative and get that out of the way. Some cinemagoers might just not get on with the huge shifts in genre as the film progresses. If you like your films neatly packaged into a specific genre – horror, comedy, romance, etc. – then the way in which Zach Cregger flexes this story might annoy the hell out of you. Or, as was the case with me, it might surprise, intrigue and delight you! Since for me, this was something truly different in the art of cinema storytelling.
The film starts off as more of a mystery thriller as the plot is unfurled via a nice child’s-eye voiceover (Scarlett Sher). We present the raw facts of that fateful night. As the fallout begins, we explore Janine’s murky lifestyle: her dependence on drink; her generally ego-centric nature and her willingness to intoxicate and then jump into the sack with her ex Paul (Alden Ehrenreich) – now a recovering alcoholic police officer.
The one thing here is that there is no real ‘horror’. This lulled me into a false state of security before…
“BAM!” – (incoming spoiler)
…the vision on Janine’s ceiling.
As a film reviewer that likes to try to see most everything, I can’t count the number of so-called horror films that I have seen in the last few years that have failed to nudge my scare-o-meter. Some have their ‘moments’, but the film will often flags them to you in advance… either through inept and obvious direction or else more cunningly through tension-building design (the ‘turning away’ of the camera from Oliver in the ‘melon scene’ of “Bring Her Back” for example… you know it’s going to be nasty when you turn back around, and you’re right!!).
For some reason, in this film, the ‘transformation’ of Janine’s ceiling rose caught me COMPLETELY off guard and I literally jumped out of my skin! Real electric shocks! Adrenaline coursing!
Obviously, once we were into the ‘horror’ part of the film, I was less easily duped. But some of the other (sparingly handed out) jump scares were also well-done.
Some other scenes in the film were just plain creepy. A scene where Janine is sleeping in her car is just unbelievably skin-crawly.
…And then yet another genre shift.
So we’ve gone from mystery to horror, but the genre shifting isn’t done yet. Before we get to the end, the final reel has yet another hand-grenade to throw into the mix: black comedy. The finale is genuinely laugh-out-loud funny. For some (Karen from Blazing Minds, for example) the abrupt change spoiled the movie for her by “breaking the spell”. I went with it and enjoyed it. But as I said in my introduction, this constant switching of genres might really irritate some viewers.
Chapters that intrigue.
I tend to get a little irritated by films that divide themselves up into “chapters”, with an ostentatious title card announcing the next part. But in this case, the chapters actually serve a solid purpose, since they are showing the same events from a different person’s perspective. Each different telling often ends with a bizarre event – for example, Janine’s mild-mannered headmaster Marcus (a very effective Benedict Wong), now bug-eyed and crazy, baying for her blood like some rabid zombie. You don’t get to understand the significance of the cliff-hanger scenes until a later chapter.
I’ve seen this described elsewhere as a “Rashamon-style” story, but it really isn’t: the story from each perspective remains consistent. Each section plays the story from each character’s physical perspective; not their psychological interpretation of the events.
Some occurrences are left delightfully vague and unexplained. For example, Archer (Josh Brolin) in a dream sequence, sees an automatic weapon hovering over a house with the clock time “2:17” flashing next to it. (I have seen comment that this relates to the passing (or not) of gun-controls for automatic weapons in the Senate. Also that it relates to a verse from Matthew 2: 17. The director has – quite rightly – not been forthcoming on the matter.)
Some superb performances.
Julia Garner absolutely holds the show together as the complex Janine, managing to balance your sympathy for the situation she is in with your distaste for some of her actions. I can honestly say that there isn’t a production I’ve seen her in where she didn’t add value: “Ozark”, “The Assistant“, “The Royal Hotel“; even the dodgy remake of “Wolf Man“. Most recently, and still in cinemas, she was pretty well unrecognisable as the Silver Surfer in “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” (albeit drawing the ire of many fan-boys demanding a sex change!).
Josh Brolin (who was also behind the production of the film) is also really effective as the grieving father desperate for answers.
Benedict Wong, who all so often seems to be cast as an ineffectual sidekick, actually gets given some ‘serious’ acting to do, going from zero to 60 in 2.4 seconds. A great performance from him.
Most bizarre of all is Amy Madigan (who I remember best as Amy Kinsella from 1989’s “Field of Dreams”!). Her performance as the troubled Aunt Gladys is – well – surprising to say the least and it wouldn’t be beyond the grounds of possibility that there might be a campaign started for awards recognition.
A film not sorry to leave ends dangling.
I found it refreshing that the film was perfectly happy to leave a few ‘but, wait a minute’ questions hanging in the air.
One for me was why the local police force was so feckin’ stupid!! (SPOILER ahead!) Long before Archer came up with the idea, I was asking the same question: if the police had so much doorbell footage of the kids running off in a perfectly straight line, why hadn’t they triangulated the trajectories? #obvious. It also rather beggers belief that the police would assume Gladys’s explanation of the catatonic father in interview and not probe deeper. But – hey – that’s what makes it a fun movie, right?
Summary Thoughts on “Weapons”
A cleverly constructed thriller, “Weapons” starts with a killer premise and then builds from there, with an innovative structure, engaging performances and some jump scares that really worked (well, for me at least). I’d be surprised if this didn’t make my top 20, if not the top 10, of the year. Zach Cregger made 2022’s “Barbarian” – a film which I must admit slipped through my net. This offering for me puts him in the same horror category as the Philippou Brothers as “someone to watch out for”.
In fact, 2025 is proving to be a golden year for new horror offerings. “Sinners” was hugely impressive, as was “Bring Her Back“. Now we have “Weapons”, with “Together” due out tomorrow which I also hear good advance word on.
Where to watch?
Trailer for “Weapons”:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpThntO9ixc.
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