Naked Singularity Review: How To Mess Up A John Boyega Sci-Fi Heist Movie?

“I’m a public defender,” says Casi (John Boyega) in Chase Palmer’s feature film debut Naked singularity. “For the 10.5 million people arrested in America last year, there are 15,000 of me.” That is the problem. A confident casi striding through the imposing halls of a New York courthouse, ready to take on the judge, the system and the world, believes he has the solution. but Naked singularity is not your typical court drama. It’s a robbery, sci-fi game, and news movie rolled into one. And it’s a pretty terrible example of all three genres.

Adapted by Palmer (co-author of Andy Muschietti’s adaptation of It) and David Matthews (them and Narcos) from the novel by Sergio De La Pava A bare singularity, Palmer’s film wastes a talented topline cast and a formidable central premise – a criticism of the criminal justice system – that crumbles due to the stark visuals and a signed ending.

The judicial drama begins with Casi, an overzealous public defender with matted hair combed back and a groschen suit who plays every trick in the book to protect the rights of his clients. But Casi is not smooth. Otherwise, his plan to nod a non-English-speaking Chinese defendant into a plea, the defendant has to wait for a Chinese-speaking lawyer, which leaves him in prison longer. He also tries to get a black client out of prison because of poor health, even though the prisoner has never been this healthy. Both of them backfire quickly as soon as his ruse is exposed.

In some ways he resembles Denzel Washington’s quirky main character in Dan Gilroy’s 2017 neo-noir Roman J. Israel, Esq. Casi railed against the biased system of plea negotiations that exploited poor colored people without the means to test a jury trial. He also has a terrible knowledge of human nature. He often takes part in verbal screaming fights against an apathetic judge (Linda Lavin) and deliberately alienates himself from her. And he sacrifices everything for his clients, even running the risk of dismissal after a passive-aggressive argument with the aforementioned judge.

Naked singularity becomes difficult to follow once Palmer loops in its different genres. Take the robbery subplot, for example: One of Casi’s former clients, the quick-talking Lea (Olivia Cooke), works in a seizure where Craig (Ed Skrein), a stuffy underworld grunt, is full of people looking for a towed black Lincoln Navigator Is cocaine. While Lea tries to walk the fine line between a high bribe from Craig and his sheer provocation to murder her, Casi teams up with his coke-headed defendant Dave (Bill Skarsgård) to rob the drug dealers.

Stilted dialogues weigh on this fascinating premise. As a message film, Naked singularity relies on Boyega to deliver lengthy, hateful hate speech about criminal justice malpractice. It is difficult to hear even its most salient points – for example, that the system is not rehabilitative but debilitating – without dozing off. Making the matter heavier is the end of the world at hand. Casi’s physicist roommate Angus (Tim Blake Nelson) predicts that her current dimension will implode, and the signs are everywhere: The temperature in an office building is 150 degrees Fahrenheit, Casi is floating, rolling power outages plunge the hot summer city into darkness. And a countdown graphic reminds us of the approaching end of the world. One of these threads would make a compelling streak. In combination, they are unwieldy.

This clumsiness flows into Andrij Parekh’s cinematography, an aesthetic mishmash of brown patina in the courtroom of the 1970s and modern neon club lights. It also has an impact on the core services. Nobody in this film speaks like a real person. Nobody makes a credible decision. That wouldn’t be a problem if the tone of the film wasn’t caught between grounded realism and soaring. Boyega, Cooke, Skarsgård, and Nelson struggle to get a solid foothold on this ever-changing ground, particularly as a romance develops between the awkward Casi and the street-savvy Lea that results in a far-fetched pairing as a falling dimension.

It’s hard to think of something that works in exactly Naked singularity. Even the villain is mistaking the message the film is trying to send. Craig is just a bat for the Golem (Kyle Mooney), a pseudonym that refers to the head of a Hasidic Jewish mob. At first the joke pops. Especially when Palmer introduces this three-piece suit gang in a sequence with a music video aesthetic: The gangsters pose wide while bombastic beats pound down on them. This gag turns ugly when their hiding place is raided and these Jewish men are over piles of money.

Palmer’s high-concept science fiction isn’t as thought-provoking as his references to Voltaire’s candidate would indicate. The philosophical beats groan under the overloaded weight of the narrative. The raid component falls flat because Casi’s and Dave’s plan is understandable. Without a big name case to get viewers’ attention, the judicial drama lacks, well, drama. And the main focus of the film – how can Casi fix a stacked system? – is not approached with any intelligence. Given Palmer’s bold premise of inviting bolder decisions, the lackluster ending leaves one to be desired. Palmers Naked resemblance is an amateur film that raises many important questions, but offers little intellectual rigor and even less action-packed excitement.

Naked singularity will open in limited editions on August 6 and in wide-release and on-demand services on August 13.