Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Rotten Tomatoes Newsletter

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

  • Upcoming Movies and TV shows
  • Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
  • Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

  • About Rotten Tomatoes®
  • Login/signup

movie review blackout 2022

Movies in theaters

  • Opening This Week
  • Top Box Office
  • Coming Soon to Theaters
  • Certified Fresh Movies

Movies at Home

  • Fandango at Home
  • Prime Video
  • Most Popular Streaming Movies
  • What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

  • 77% Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Link to Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
  • 73% Blink Twice Link to Blink Twice
  • 95% Strange Darling Link to Strange Darling

New TV Tonight

  • 100% Slow Horses: Season 4
  • 97% English Teacher: Season 1
  • 54% The Perfect Couple: Season 1
  • -- Tell Me Lies: Season 2
  • -- Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist: Season 1
  • -- Wise Guy: David Chase and The Sopranos: Season 1
  • -- Outlast: Season 2
  • -- The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives: Season 1
  • -- Selling Sunset: Season 8
  • -- Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Season 14

Most Popular TV on RT

  • 74% Kaos: Season 1
  • 83% The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Season 2
  • 88% Terminator Zero: Season 1
  • 100% Dark Winds: Season 2
  • 95% Only Murders in the Building: Season 4
  • 92% Bad Monkey: Season 1
  • Best TV Shows
  • Most Popular TV

Certified fresh pick

  • 97% English Teacher: Season 1 Link to English Teacher: Season 1
  • All-Time Lists
  • Binge Guide
  • Comics on TV
  • Five Favorite Films
  • Video Interviews
  • Weekend Box Office
  • Weekly Ketchup
  • What to Watch

Venice Film Festival 2024: Movie Scorecard

Best Movies of 2024: Best New Movies to Watch Now

What to Watch: In Theaters and On Streaming

Awards Tour

Joker: Folie à Deux First Reviews: Joaquin Phoenix Shines Again in ‘Deranged, Exciting, and Deeply Unsettling’ Sequel

Renewed and Cancelled TV Shows 2024

  • Trending on RT
  • Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
  • Top 10 Box Office
  • Venice Film Festival
  • Popular Series on Netflix

Blackout Reviews

movie review blackout 2022

It’s a somewhat dimwitted thriller, sloppily plotted. But the fights are pretty good — and there are a LOT of them. And Duhamel always gives fair value, even in a B-picture.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Dec 13, 2022

movie review blackout 2022

There’s just not enough under the hood to make this thing go. It’s simply too by-the-books and even the charming Josh Duhamel can’t liven it up or give it the kick it needs.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 12, 2022

movie review blackout 2022

Perhaps something more could've been done with this premise, but the result is uninspired at best.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 26, 2022

Doesn't bring anything new to the action genre and is full of vices and obvious choices in both the grandiloquent action scenes and the crude characterization of its characters. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 4/10 | Oct 18, 2022

movie review blackout 2022

I’m pretty sure it’s not a great or even that good a film, but it is goofily entertaining and sometimes that’s good enough for an action film.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Oct 15, 2022

movie review blackout 2022

Common Sense Media

Movie & TV reviews for parents

  • For Parents
  • For Educators
  • Our Work and Impact

Or browse by category:

  • Movie Reviews
  • Best Movie Lists
  • Best Movies on Netflix, Disney+, and More

Common Sense Selections for Movies

movie review blackout 2022

50 Modern Movies All Kids Should Watch Before They're 12

movie review blackout 2022

  • Best TV Lists
  • Best TV Shows on Netflix, Disney+, and More
  • Common Sense Selections for TV
  • Video Reviews of TV Shows

movie review blackout 2022

Best Kids' Shows on Disney+

movie review blackout 2022

Best Kids' TV Shows on Netflix

  • Book Reviews
  • Best Book Lists
  • Common Sense Selections for Books

movie review blackout 2022

8 Tips for Getting Kids Hooked on Books

movie review blackout 2022

50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12

  • Game Reviews
  • Best Game Lists

Common Sense Selections for Games

  • Video Reviews of Games

movie review blackout 2022

Nintendo Switch Games for Family Fun

movie review blackout 2022

  • Podcast Reviews
  • Best Podcast Lists

Common Sense Selections for Podcasts

movie review blackout 2022

Parents' Guide to Podcasts

movie review blackout 2022

  • App Reviews
  • Best App Lists

movie review blackout 2022

Social Networking for Teens

movie review blackout 2022

Gun-Free Action Game Apps

movie review blackout 2022

Reviews for AI Apps and Tools

  • YouTube Channel Reviews
  • YouTube Kids Channels by Topic

movie review blackout 2022

Parents' Ultimate Guide to YouTube Kids

movie review blackout 2022

YouTube Kids Channels for Gamers

  • Preschoolers (2-4)
  • Little Kids (5-7)
  • Big Kids (8-9)
  • Pre-Teens (10-12)
  • Teens (13+)
  • Screen Time
  • Social Media
  • Online Safety
  • Identity and Community

movie review blackout 2022

How to Help Kids Build Character Strengths with Quality Media

  • Family Tech Planners
  • Digital Skills
  • All Articles
  • Latino Culture
  • Black Voices
  • Asian Stories
  • Native Narratives
  • LGBTQ+ Pride
  • Best of Diverse Representation List

movie review blackout 2022

Multicultural Books

movie review blackout 2022

YouTube Channels with Diverse Representations

movie review blackout 2022

Podcasts with Diverse Characters and Stories

Blackout Movie Poster

  • Common Sense Says
  • Parents Say 1 Review
  • Kids Say 1 Review

Common Sense Media Review

Brian Costello

Cliched action movie has graphic violence, language, nudity.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Blackout is a 2022 action movie in which Josh Duhamel plays a man who wakes up in a Mexican hospital with amnesia while surrounded by violent cartel members. Expect a lot of action movie violence, including lots of fight scenes involving guns, machine guns, assault rifles, knives,…

Why Age 16+?

Constant action movie violence. Extensive fight sequences with guns, machine gun

Gratuitous female nudity in one scene, as lead character discovers a cocaine-mak

Strong language throughout, including "f--k" and "motherf--ker." Also: "bulls--t

Characters shown binge drinking. Booze drinking from a flask. Beer drinking in a

Any Positive Content?

The vast majority of the villains are the weapon-wielding members of a Mexican d

Violence & Scariness

Constant action movie violence. Extensive fight sequences with guns, machine guns, and assault rifles. Characters shot and killed at point-blank range. Characters stabbed in their throats. Character pushed off a building to fall to his death. Lead character removes a blade from his chest -- graphic and bloody. Violent car crash as villains fire at the vehicle. Characters burned alive by an exploding gas tank. Hot water in the face. Syringes thrown in faces. Charred dead body found in the aftermath of a house set on fire.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Gratuitous female nudity in one scene, as lead character discovers a cocaine-making operation in the basement of a hospital -- the women who work in the room are all completely naked. Passionate kissing in a later scene.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Strong language throughout, including "f--k" and "motherf--ker." Also: "bulls--t," "s--t," "a--hole," "goddamn," "dumbass," "pissed," and the Spanish profanities "pendejo" and "cabron."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Characters shown binge drinking. Booze drinking from a flask. Beer drinking in a bar. Cocaine making in the basement of a hospital. Lead character is injected with a sedative by one of the villains -- camera shows his woozy point of view.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Diverse Representations

The vast majority of the villains are the weapon-wielding members of a Mexican drug cartel.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Parents need to know that Blackout is a 2022 action movie in which Josh Duhamel plays a man who wakes up in a Mexican hospital with amnesia while surrounded by violent cartel members. Expect a lot of action movie violence, including lots of fight scenes involving guns, machine guns, assault rifles, knives, syringes, hot water, hospital trays, etc. A man is pushed off the roof of a building, falling to his death. The lead character pulls a blade out of his chest -- bloody and graphic. Characters are shot and killed at point-blank range. Stabbings in throats are graphic. Gratuitous female nudity -- naked women are shown processing cocaine in a lab in the basement of a hospital. Strong language throughout, including "f--k" and "motherf--ker." Binge drinking in a flashback scene. Booze drinking, beer drinking. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Blackout Movie: Scene One

Parent and Kid Reviews

  • Parents say (1)
  • Kids say (1)

Based on 1 parent review

Not worth watching

What's the story.

In BLACKOUT, a man ( Josh Duhamel ) wakes up in a hospital with no memory of who he is or why he's there. At his bedside is Anna ( Abbie Cornish ), who tells him that his name is John Cain, that they're in love, and that just outside the door is his best friend Eddie. In spite of his condition, Cain immediately senses that there's something not right about Eddie and that Anna isn't telling him the truth about their relationship. As he slowly regains his faculties, Cain escapes his room and tries escaping from the hospital, but finds that escape won't be easy, as there are dozens of weapon-toting members of a drug cartel who seem all too eager to kill him. Cain starts to believe that he too is a member of a drug cartel, but he also suspects there's something more to all of this, as memories of a stolen briefcase flutter in his returning memories. As he pieces all of this together, Cain must figure out who, if anyone, is on his side as he continues fighting his way out of the hospital.

Is It Any Good?

A shaky premise becomes more and more ludicrous as the movie goes on. Blackout starts out with a man who is in a hospital in Mexico waking up with no idea who he is and no memory of how he got there. He's informed by a doctor that he has post-traumatic amnesia. If rest won't fix our hero, rest assured that getting shot, kicked, stabbed, and syringed at by dozens of drug cartel henchmen will most assuredly do the trick, and the rest of the movie seems like it's mostly just an excuse to film Josh Duhamel beating people up with everything from his fists to syringes to hospital food trays.

Of course, it's not just Duhamel's character's amnesia that creates a sense of distrust among all parties. The proverbial "Feds" are in the mix as well (DEA, CIA), and, natch, they're not to be trusted either because, you know, it's all one big conspiracy, maaan. The action sequences themselves aren't bad, no matter how thoroughly absurd most of them are. Perhaps something more could've been done with this premise, but the result is uninspired at best.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about action movies like Blackout. How is this similar to and different from other action movies you've seen?

What are some of the cliches in the movie? Why do cliches tend to lower the quality of a film?

Was the violent content necessary for the story, or did some of it seem excessive? Why?

Movie Details

  • On DVD or streaming : October 12, 2022
  • Cast : Josh Duhamel , Abbie Cornish , Omar Chaparro
  • Director : Sam Macaroni
  • Inclusion Information : Latino actors, Female writers, Lesbian writers, Asian writers
  • Studio : Netflix
  • Genre : Action/Adventure
  • Run time : 81 minutes
  • MPAA rating : NR
  • Last updated : February 17, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

What to watch next.

The 355 Poster Image

Charlie's Angels (2019)

Seven Samurai Poster Image

Seven Samurai

Best action movies for kids, thriller movies.

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

movie review blackout 2022

REVIEW: “Blackout” (2022)

movie review blackout 2022

Here’s another movie tapping into the well-worn ‘hero with amnesia’ premise. You know the ones – the protagonist wakes up unable to remember who they are. Soon they’re shooting it out with a bunch of goons who want to kill them, all while trying to piece back together their memory. This latest spin on the story isn’t much of a spin at all. But it does star the ever likable Josh Duhamel, so there’s that.

Sharing the same title with as least 30 other movies (according to IMDB), “Blackout” tells a story that ends up being as uninspired as its name. Duhamel plays John Cain, who wakes up in a hospital bed following a serious car accident. It just so happens that Cain has lost his memory. He has no idea who he is or how he got there. By his side is Anna (an incredibly dry Abbie Cornish) saying she’s his wife. Later he’s visited by Eddie (Omar Chaparro) claiming to be his best friend. But why can’t he remember either of them.

movie review blackout 2022

It turns out Cain possesses a briefcase full of something the drug cartels are desperate to get their hands on. The problem is he has no recollection of the briefcase or of what’s inside it. But as his memory slowly starts returning, he finds himself questioning the information different people are feeding him. What are lies? What’s the truth? Even more, if Eddie is Cain’s friend why is he suddenly trying to kill our woozy protagonist? Soon we have a full-scale shoot-em-up as the cartel locks down hospital, and Cain tries to escape while sorting out who he can ultimately trust.

Directed by Sam Macaroni and written by Van B. Nguyen, “Blackout” bops along fairly briskly after getting its setup out of the way. The mostly single setting is a compelling choice and Macaroni has a good eye for action. The fistfights and shoot-outs don’t always make sense and some are just plain silly. But they’re stylishly shot, and Duhamel has the physicality to pull them off.

movie review blackout 2022

Unfortunately Nguyen’s script isn’t as reliable. First off, she’s bound by a pretty tired premise and doesn’t really offer anything new to the old formula. As for the suspense, Nguyen tries to keep us guessing by spoon-feeding just enough information. But there really aren’t many surprises, and everything plays out in a way most people will have figured out well before the not-so-big reveal. It’s also hampered by some pretty hokey dialogue, especially once Nick Nolte shows up. He plays DEA Agent Ethan McCoy, an old friend of Cain’s trying to help him from the outside. It’s great seeing Nolte on screen again. But the 81-year-old screen veteran struggles, and isn’t helped by some really hammy lines that frankly no one could sell.

So “Blackout” ends up being a pretty generic action-thriller that has some decent shootouts and a couple of good fight scenes. There’s just not enough under the hood to make this thing go. It’s simply too by-the-books and even the charming Josh Duhamel can’t liven it up or give it the kick it needs. It’s a shame because I still believe Duhamel can carry bigger movies and handle meatier roles if only given the chance. Sadly, “Blackout” won’t do anything to enhance those opportunities. “Blackout” is now streaming on Netflix.

VERDICT – 2 STARS

movie review blackout 2022

Share this:

10 thoughts on “ review: “blackout” (2022) ”.

It sounds like a B movie knock off, I won’t be finding ou for myself, cheers!

Don’t waste you time. It’s most definitely a knock-off.

Definitely!

Moving on…

Good move. LOL

Count me out. Thanks for saving me the time, I would have probably watched this one.

You won’t be missing a thing.

Leave a comment Cancel reply

' src=

  • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
  • Subscribe Subscribed
  • Copy shortlink
  • Report this content
  • View post in Reader
  • Manage subscriptions
  • Collapse this bar

movie review blackout 2022

Blackout (VI) (2022)

  • User Reviews

Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews

  • User Ratings
  • External Reviews
  • Metacritic Reviews
  • Full Cast and Crew
  • Release Dates
  • Official Sites
  • Company Credits
  • Filming & Production
  • Technical Specs
  • Plot Summary
  • Plot Keywords
  • Parents Guide

Did You Know?

  • Crazy Credits
  • Alternate Versions
  • Connections
  • Soundtracks

Photo & Video

  • Photo Gallery
  • Trailers and Videos

Related Items

  • External Sites

Related lists from IMDb users

list image

Recently Viewed

movie review blackout 2022

WHICHFILM.COM MAIN LOGO

WhichFilm | Film Reviews | Audience Film Reviews

Blackout (2022)

Blackout (2022)

Director: Sam Macaroni 95 minutes

Release Date: 1st October 2022

A man wakes up after a car crash incident with no memory and is hunted by the cartel as he tries to build his memories back up.

     

Create your own review

Trailer makes BlackOut look fantastic when actually its very very bad...only thing good about this Movie is Abbie Cornish and I think even She was cringing at the Premier.
Watched it on netflix last night and wish I had seen reviews on here first. They made it look like a new Bourne film in the netflix trailer so I watched it and was soooo disappointed. Was going to turn it off but had already got through hour of it.
Yeah this was pretty bad, grunting lol - there is a reason there is no trailer 🙂 Better action is this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoD0DYke_Dc
Less grunting than John Wick but more grunting than Rambo.
Very poor. From the very start it's all full out action as the predictable storyline continues to grind along dragging you with it. There's lots of grunting and shouting as the actors take part in close quarter combat which is mostly laughable in places. It's like an HD Ready version of a very bad 80's film and Nick Nolte I am sure was brought in to add a quality name. He seemed ill and almost embarrassed to be a part of Blackout to be honest. There are far better action films out there, in fact just watch your bins being collected on bin day for more entertainment.

Have you seen these?

Rogue Hostage (2021)

The Cinemaholic

Blackout (2022) Ending, Explained: What Is Inside the Case?

 of Blackout (2022) Ending, Explained: What Is Inside the Case?

Netflix’s ‘Blackout’ is an action thriller film directed by Sam Macaroni that stars Josh Duhamel (‘ Jupiter’s Legacy ‘) as John Cain, a man dealing with memory loss . He wakes up in a hospital without any recollection of his past. Soon, Cain finds himself fighting for survival as a dangerous cartel leader, and DEA Agents target him. Meanwhile, Cain learns about a mysterious case that seems to be at the root of the conflict he finds himself trapped. Therefore, viewers must be curious to learn about Cain’s fate, his past, and the case’s whereabouts. In that case, here is everything you need to know about the ending of ‘Blackout.’ SPOILERS AHEAD!

Blackout Plot Synopsis

‘Blackout’ opens with Ethan McCoy (Nick Nolte), the head of a DEA team, searching for a man named John Cain in a burned-down house. Meanwhile, John Cain wakes up in a hospital near Mexico. He has no recollection of his past or how he got to the hospital. As Cain struggles to remember who he is, he meets Anna (Abbie Cornish), a woman who claims to be his wife. On the other hand, Eddie, a notorious cartel leader, claims to be Cain’s friend. Eddie and Anna try to bring back Cain’s memories, but he is unsure if they can be trusted.

movie review blackout 2022

Soon, Cain is attacked by some goons dressed as hospital staff and realizes that the hospital is in lockdown. Cain decides to escape the hospital with the help of Eddie and Anna. Meanwhile, Eddie threatens Dr. Garza, who is caring for Cain, to bring back his memories. However, Cain is injured after a fight in the elevator and meets Dr. Garza. Cain learns from Dr. Garza that Eddie and his cartel are after a case that Cain had stolen. They tried to use memory drugs on Cain to uncover the case’s location. However, Dr. Garza took away Cain’s memories so that he would be useless to the cartel and his life would be saved.

Later, Cain learns from Anna that the CIA recruited him to steal the case, which contains highly sensitive information. On the other hand, an encounter with McCoy leads Cain to believe he is a DEA Agent. Unsure of who he can trust, Cain must tell on his wits to survive the deadly hunt for the case. Meanwhile, flashes of his past give Cain hints about the case’s whereabouts and his relationship with McCoy, Eddie, and Anna, whether or not Cain regains his memories and discovers the case’s location from the rest of the plot.

Blackout Ending: Does Cain Regain His Memory?

The conceit of the film’s plot hinges on Cain’s memory loss. The man with a mysterious past has nearly no recollection of his life. While Cain remembers basic human life, he does not remember his own identity. As a result, Cain relies on those around him for answers about his past. However, after learning about the threat to his life and his connection to the missing case, Cain realizes he cannot trust anyone. Meanwhile, Eddie, Anna, and McCoy each give him pieces of his past that will benefit their own search for the case.

movie review blackout 2022

As the narrative progresses, Cain’s quest to uncover his past intertwines with the search for the case. Therefore, it becomes evident that the case might provide Cain with answers about his identity. As a result, Cain decides to recover the case and finally end the inconvenience of not having access to his memories. The search culminates in a climactic battle, where Cain fights the cartel. He battles with Eddie, and despite the glimpses of his past friendship with Eddie, Cain realizes he cannot trust the man. Cain kills Eddie, but the incident does not jog his memory.

During the climax, Anna arrives just in time to help Cain. Anna’s assistance sparks a memory from Cain’s past, and he realizes they share a special connection. As a result, Cain becomes convinced that he can trust Anna. Ultimately, Cain is unable to regain the entirety of his memories. Cain’s memories were erased to save his life, and it is implied that he knew some sensitive information. However, in the end, Cain’s memories do not return. He is only able to recollect the essence of his relationship with Anna. Nonetheless, the fraction of his memory appears to be the most important. It helps Cain trust someone and gives him the courage to continue fighting for his life.

Does Cain Find the Case? What Is Inside It?

During the film’s climax, Cain is preoccupied with fighting Eddie and his men. However, Anna succeeds in locating the case. As viewers know by this point, Dr. Garza had hidden the case away in the hospital so that he could save Cain’s life. Moreover, if Cain were to defeat Eddie and the cartel, it would free his hospital from their criminal activities. Therefore, the doctor had carefully hidden the briefcase. Only by looking carefully at the clues provided by Dr. Garza is Anna able to locate the case. However, the case’s contents remain a mystery until the very end.

movie review blackout 2022

After defeating the cartel, Cain and Anna are reduced by McCoy’s team. McCoy meets the couple in a car and demands the case. However, before handing over the case, Cain demands to know what is inside it. McCoy reveals that the case contains the names and addresses of all the people who hold power in the world. It includes the details of the “puppet and puppeteer,” implying that the names in the briefcase belong to an Illuminati-type group. As such sensitive information is too much for a single person to hold, McCoy decides to kill Cain.

However, Anna comes to Cain’s rescue and kills McCoy’s men. In the end, Cain and Anna decide to keep the case but do not open its contents. They deduce that McCoy wanted the case so he could sell its information on the black market and make money. However, the couple ends up foiling his plan. However, Cain spares McCoy’s life, likely out of their shared past, which Cain remembers only briefly. Ultimately, the case contains information that can create chaos in the world, and the entire fight for obtaining the case is to create a balance within society. Eddie, McCoy, and Cain each have their own takes on this concept of balance. However, Cain emerges on top and decides to keep the case hidden to avoid more such conflicts.

Read More: Where Was Netflix’s Blackout Filmed?

SPONSORED LINKS

The Cinemaholic Sidebar

  • Movie Explainers
  • TV Explainers

Screen Rant

Your changes have been saved

Email is sent

Email has already been sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

Your Rating

Sam Macaroni

Reviews (0)

Have You Watched It?

Be the first to leave your review.

User Display Picture

Josh Duhamel

Abbie cornish, omar chaparro, hernan del riego, josé sefami, seasons (4).

movie review blackout 2022

Season 1 (2016)

Season 2 (2018), season 3 (2022), season 4 (2026), users reviews (125).

We want to hear from you! Share your opinions in the review below and remember to keep it respectful.

User Display Picture

Your comment has not been saved

User Display Picture

Related Titles

movie review blackout 2022

eternal sunshine of the spotless mind

movie review blackout 2022

BABY REINDEER

movie review blackout 2022

High On Films

Blackout (2022) Movie Ending, Explained: Can John Cain Escape the Grasp of the Mexican Cartel?

Director by Sam Macaroni ‘Blackout 2022’ is a suspense thriller starring Josh Duhamel – a towering figure who fisticuffs himself out of a nasty chase by the cartel who are after one suitcase containing documents that would oust international organized crime. With a DEA agent working two sides of the law, John Cain (played by Josh Duhamel) must rally whatever remains of his instincts from military training to find a way to trust his immediate resources and survive.

When the human brain experiences neuropathic failure and memory loss, it becomes very hard to perceive reality for the way it is. After suffering a terrible car accident, John Cain must trust himself when his memory fails and he experiences momentary periods where it slowly returns to help make sense of his current circumstances. With events occurring in quick succession, he must be one step ahead to stay alive by the end of it. With one blond woman by his side whom he does not recognize yet, this article aims at understanding Cain’s chance of staying alive even when every odd is against him and his trusted resources fail. Except for one.

Blackout (2022) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:

One man standing against international organized crime.

With a suitcase containing sensitive information against towering figures involved in crimes internationally, John Cain suffers a terrible car accident while trying to secure the documents. When he wakes up in the hospital, he cannot remember all the faces standing before him. His instincts are working proactively because his military training has flushed adrenaline through his system to remember how to survive. With no recollection of the past two days, he cannot be fully present. Faces, names, and voices draw a blank in his brain.

With time running out, the cartel is close at Cain’s heel because sensitive information is in the wind. Unknown to the possessor, Cain is still to gauge the precarious circumstances of remaining alive. With this suitcase deciding his fate for the next few hours, his instincts take over his system and act accordingly, rapidly adapting. Ethan McCoy, a DEA agent, visits a burnt house supposedly belonging to John Cain, an undercover Agent for the past five years. While Cain absconds with the suitcase and his house burnt down, McCoy is panicking. A blonde woman sits by John’s side and tells him she is his wife. A Mexican man walks into the room and tells him he is John’s brother named Eddie.

Blackout (2022) Movie Ending Explained (2)

They share a brotherly bond but John’s antenna is overacting and tries to catch Eddie’s lies. The DEA are fervently seeking John Cain and the suitcase and luck favour them when Cain finds a satellite phone. He contacts them from a number stored safely in his wallet. McCoy tries to have the call traced but Cain knows better than to trust anyone at this moment, so he keeps the call short. The hospital he is in is not unknown to him. He sniffs around the room noticing a fake wall.

When one piece gives away, he discovers a new room leading to a secret chamber engulfed in red light. It has naked women straining and storing drugs. With arms and ammunition lying around, there are even exotic animals in cages. A secret operation within the hospital premises. The Blonde woman tried to tell John that he is part of the cartel. Now, there is proof. Although he woke up to this reality, he does not believe it to be associated with his true self. However, the next conversation he has with McCoy throws more light on his identity.

When he gets wounded again, his blonde wife tries to nurse the wound after Cain has made a quick call to McCoy who reveals to him he is an undercover DEA Agent for the past five years. He has been undercover, working with Eddie to get access to that suitcase. The car accident was an event no one predicted and hence, it made them move faster. With the whole operation hanging by a thread, Cain remains suspicious and continues trying to find a way out of the hospital while battling Eddie’s cronies who roam the hospital floors trying to kill him. Eddie is struggling to find Cain and manages to find him occasionally which always ends with bullets flying. Fragment of John’s memory begins to return in flashes. He does not react or respond but quietly takes it in. One memory is of a woman sitting in front of a sunset. He is not sure if it is the blonde woman, who claims to be his wife. Unsure of her role, she has nursed his wound. He trusts her for the moment.

After McCoy has told Cain what he must know for the moment, Cain moves quietly through the vent only to collapse on a church in one of the rooms of the hospital. Diego, one of Eddie’s guys, tells him he stole money and now even the suitcase. After killing Diego, Cain keeps his phone to tell Eddie to meet him on the roof. Eddie arranges for snipers to be present on the roof in case he is in danger. When Eddie meets with Cain on the roof, they have a conversation trying to find a middle ground. As Cain is about to recollect where the suitcase is, Eddie mistakenly gives the signal for the men to shoot Cain dead. With bullets flying, Cain escapes.

Blackout (2022) Movie Ending, Explained:

Do eddie and anna make it out of the mexican hospital alive.

Cain needs to get out of this Mexican Hospital. McCoy is struggling to find a way to get Cain out of the hospital. The board at the DEA decide to burn the place down. Whereas McCoy is playing both sides of the law and needs to look out for himself. Slyly, he makes another call to Cain, who tells him he might know where the case could be. The truth is his memory can’t go back to the moment he walked into the hospital. With Cain’s assumption that the suitcase is out of his reach, he must get Eddie of his back.

Blackout (2022) Movie Ending Explained (1)

McCoy tells him he will try and save Eddie but also alerts him that the DEA will light up the whole building and blow it to pieces. His best bet is to get out via the east Entrance where the sun rises at Sunrise. He needs to time his escape and he takes the blonde woman with him. When Cain has a moment to think about what he could do next, the blonde woman comes to him to tell him that she is CIA and she cannot leave him. They must work together which angers him. He demands she sit still while he gets the suitcase or settles the score with Eddie for the final time.

The staff in the hospital are currently held hostage by Eddie and his men. With one nurse in danger, Cain has been injected with a drug for his memory to recover. Dr. Garnaz, Cain’s attending doctor, is terrified and fed up with Eddie and his constant threats. With complete faith in Cain, he tells Cain that he is the only one who can take care of Eddie, who works closely with General Mondejo, the head of the army in Mexico and whose suitcase Cain has in his custody. With everything tied up and slowly beginning to make sense, Cain keeps seeing a woman sitting on a sofa at a beach at sunset.

Cain calls Eddie on the phone and tells him to finish this on the last floor of the hospital. When they both finally face each other, bullets fly and they engage in a nasty fistfight leaving both of them bloody and close to death. When Eddie delivers the last blow to kill Cain, someone shoots ten bullets through his upper torso. The Blonde Woman has shot Eddie and has the suitcase with her. At that moment, Cain sees the face of the woman in his vision. It is the woman he is with now. His wife. She slowly helps him up after he kisses her and they have a moment. They manage to get out of the hospital and McCoy meets with the two of them in his car.

McCoy identifies what is in the suitcase and somehow, Cain is still not fully convinced about his true intentions. After McCoy tells him the sensitive information in the suitcase will never see the light of day, Cain feels protective of the suitcase. With Anna, the blonde woman holding a gun to his face, he feels momentarily betrayed. When the driver of the car forcefully tries to pull at the suitcase, McCoy admits he is a rat and working both sides. Within a fraction of a second, everyone’s guns come out. Suddenly, it all seems out of place. The next second Anna shoots the two DEA agents sitting behind them and then the driver leaving McCoy and Cain alive. She was never on anyone’s side except Cain’s. Cain shoots McCoy in the gut and gets out of the vehicle to leave him to die in the car. Cain and his wife, Anna escape with a suitcase filled with names, faces, and institutions involved in international organized crime.

Read More: Lucy (2014) Movie Ending, Explained

Blackout (2022) movie trailer.

Blackout (2022) Movie Links – IMDb , Wikipedia Blackout (2022) Movie Cast – Josh Duhamel, Abbie Cornish, Omar Chaparro, Nick Nolte

Where to watch blackout.

' src=

A storyteller and painter, Anushka is still looking for a silver lining in any situation and figuring out how innovative she can be to make the world a better place. She is charisma and mystery with a spark of genius. A true believer that film is this generation's strongest power yet, for change.

Twitter

Similar Posts

The Rapist [2022]: ‘KIFF’ Review – Konkona’s spitfire, soul-baring performance fails to lift this leaden dud

The Rapist [2022]: ‘KIFF’ Review – Konkona’s spitfire, soul-baring performance fails to lift this leaden dud

Saudi Vellakka (2022) Review: Sluggish screenplay distracts from an interesting story

Saudi Vellakka (2022) Review: Sluggish screenplay distracts from an interesting story

One Night Stand Murder (2023) Movie Ending Explained – Who is the real killer(s)?

One Night Stand Murder (2023) Movie Ending Explained – Who is the real killer(s)?

Falimy (2023) Movie Review: A Warm Tale Of A Dysfunctional Family Navigating A Road Trip And Life Together

Falimy (2023) Movie Review: A Warm Tale Of A Dysfunctional Family Navigating A Road Trip And Life Together

The Happening (2008) Movie Ending Explained & Themes Analysed: Did the Natural Disaster in “The Happening” Truly End, or Is It Just the Beginning? 

The Happening (2008) Movie Ending Explained & Themes Analysed: Did the Natural Disaster in “The Happening” Truly End, or Is It Just the Beginning? 

The 10 Best Japanese Movies Of 2022

The 10 Best Japanese Movies Of 2022

logo

  • Rankings FA
  • TV Premiere Calendar
  • Coming in 2024
  • Latest Reviews

United States

  • Credits 
  • Trailers  [1]
  • Image gallery  [1]

All images are copyrighted by their respective copyright holders and/or producers/distributors.

Blackout

  • Lou Ferrigno Jr.

Pedro Lopez

  • See all credits

All copyrighted material (movie posters, DVD covers, stills, trailers) and trademarks belong to their respective producers and/or distributors.

User history

Blackout

Blackout movie 2024

Review by Brian Eggert April 9, 2024

Blackout movie 2024

Larry Fessenden has made a career out of demonstrating that genre movies have the same capacity to confront social issues as serious dramas. The defiantly independent filmmaker behind the New York-based production company Glass Eye Pix, Fessenden uses horror in allegorical terms, applying his scrappy, low-budget approach to sometimes traditional motifs. He created a modern Dr. Frankenstein in No Telling (1991), an early career feature that involves a mad scientist experimenting on animals, thereby addressing issues from the unethical treatment of animals to environmentalism. His breakout, Habit (1997), explored the alienation and self-destructiveness of an alcoholic loner within a vampire story. Years later, he returned to Mary Shelley territory with Depraved (2019) and took on the physical and psychological toll of combat and PTSD on US soldiers. Fessenden’s latest, Blackout , continues his tendency to reframe classic monsters with contemporary concerns, using a werewolf movie in the style of The Wolf Man (1941) in a story about matters of land development, the exploitation of migrant workers, and, of course, personal demons. 

Blackout boasts a refreshingly classical werewolf look that counters recent offerings, most of which involve humans transforming into bipedal wolf creatures. The trend was popularized by a series of movies in the early 1980s that tried to outperform each other with their elaborate practical transformations—see 1981’s An American Werewolf in London and The Howling , and 1984’s The Company of Wolves . Effects wizards have been paying homage ever since. Cases where the main character transforms into a monster resembling the original Wolf Man from Universal Pictures, a clothed man-beast played by Lon Chaney Jr., remain far less frequent. Although exceptions include Jack Nicholson in Wolf (1994) and Benicio del Toro in The Wolfman (2010), most contemporary werewolf movies opt for a full lycanthropic transformation into a creature resembling an animal (see the Twilight and Underworld franchises), adding an element of spectacle into the presentation. So Fessenden’s adoption of a classical wolf-man design in Blackout gives the film a certain throwback appeal. 

Following an old B-movie trope that suggests horror needs a death or nudity in the first few minutes to hook the viewer, Blackout features both. With that out of the way, the story takes place in a sleepy Pacific Northwestern town called Talbot Falls, a winking reference to Larry Talbot, the name of the original Wolf Man character from George Waggner’s film. The local cops even have badges that resemble pentagrams, “The mark of the werewolf,” according to the original movie. The story centers on Charley, played by Alex Hurt, son of the late actor William Hurt. The young Hurt emotes in a way similar to his father, including his uncanny intensity and a weariness behind his eyes, suggesting a deep-seated pain he’s masking, albeit unsuccessfully. The truth about Charley: he’s a werewolf. Hurt plays this artist and struggling alcoholic with the gravity befitting someone teeming with guilt and uncertainty over transforming into a monster and slaying innocents, only to wake up bloodied and with no memory of what happened. 

Blackout movie 2024

Viewers expecting a straightforward werewolf movie with sensationalized killings and horror-centric thrills may be disappointed. Although Blackout boasts a few jarring monster images and a shock or two, achieved mostly with inexpensive practical effects, Fessenden isn’t interested in delivering a horror programmer. Instead, the movie is a portrait of America seen through the perspective of an outsider, who is so ruined by his disenchantment that he’s given to drinking and lashing out at those close to him. Exploitative land deals, racist cops, militia groups taking the law into their own hands, and discriminatory leaders have caused Charley to retreat into his artist’s life. His inability to function as a productive member of Talbot Falls is symptomatic of people who feel powerless in the face of injustice. “You got the haunt in you,” Miguel tells Charley. But he doesn’t connect that Charley’s demon is the “hombre lobo” suspected of terrorizing the town. 

Serving as the writer, director, producer, and editor, Fessenden finds a clever form-follows-function excuse to avoid showing elaborate werewolf transformations in his film. After the two local cops (Ella Rae Peck and Joseph Castillo-Midyett) discuss the German concept of “umwelt,” a word for how one’s environment shapes one’s perspective and how one sees the world, the director has an excuse to take us into Charley’s mind for his transformations. Rather than showing an elaborate change with rubbery effects or CGI, both of which would strain Fessenden’s usual budgetary limitations, the director opts for inspired animated sequences that look like paintings come to life. They show how Charley, the painter, sees himself through his art of choice. Elsewhere, Collin Brazie’s handheld cinematography adds a naturalistic style, while werewolf-cam visual effects recalling the wolf sequences in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) give the attack scenes some frenetic energy.

While Blackout ’s production values may look negligible even by the standards of today’s booming indie horror market, Fessenden draws excellent performances out of his cast of familiar faces. Genre veterans Bell and Crampton join Joe Swanberg, James Le Gros, Kevin Corrigan, and Michael Buscemi for a feature that might be laughable in another filmmaker’s hands. Fortunately, Fessenden brings narrative gravitas to a story that, not unlike Habit or many of his other features, is less about monster thrills than the complex central performance. Hurt sells every moment of the film, even if his facial prostheses don’t belong in a conversation about the best-looking screen werewolves. Hurt’s wounded persona and Fessenden’s portrait of Talbot Falls as a stand-in for America make for a compelling watch in a rare, worthy werewolf movie about a familiar condition of existential despair. 

become_a_patron_button@2x

Related Titles

The Wolf Man poster

The Definitives

Cat People poster

  • In Theaters

Recent Reviews

  • Beetlejuice Beetlejuice 2 Stars ☆ ☆
  • Close Your Eyes 4 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
  • Look Into My Eyes 2.5 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆
  • AfrAId 1.5 Stars ☆ ☆
  • Patreon Exclusive: Rope 3 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆
  • Good One 4 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
  • Strange Darling 3 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆
  • Blink Twice 3 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆
  • Alien: Romulus 2.5 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆
  • Skincare 3 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆
  • Sing Sing 3.5 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
  • Borderlands 1.5 Stars ☆ ☆
  • Dìdi 3 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆
  • Cuckoo 3 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆
  • The Instigators 2 Stars ☆ ☆

Recent Articles

  • The Definitives: The Spirit of the Beehive
  • Interview: Jeff Vande Zande, Author of The Dance of Rotten Sticks
  • Reader's Choice: Even Dwarfs Started Small
  • The Definitives: Nocturama
  • Guest Appearance: KARE 11 - Hidden Gems of Summer
  • The Labyrinth of Memory in Chris Marker’s La Jetée
  • Reader's Choice: Perfect Days
  • The Definitives: Kagemusha
  • The Scrappy Independents of Mumblegore
  • Reader's Choice: Society of the Snow

Where You've Seen The Cast Of Netflix's Blackout Before

Josh Duhamel in Blackout

Netflix has assembled a strong catalog of original movies in 2022, with entries like "Me Time," "Do Revenge," "Spiderhead," and "Senior Year" already making waves. In October 2022, the company added "Blackout," a thrilling, action-packed movie about a man, Cain (Josh Duhamel), who wakes up in a Mexican hospital with no memory of his past. As Cain is hunted by cartels who want something he stole, he must outlive their attacks in a locked-down hospital.

Along with featuring some familiar names in contemporary Hollywood, "Blackout" gives its spotlight to some of Spanish-language cinema's prominent recurring figures of the last 10 years, as well as some faces who are less recognizable. Here's a breakdown of the cast who will be entangled in a war over information about international criminals.

Josh Duhamel

Josh Duhamel in Transformers

Before assuming the lead role of Cain in "Blackout," Duhamel was a model who first garnered acclaim for his portrayal of the titular character in "Win a Date With Tad Hamilton!" Starring alongside Kate Bosworth and Topher Grace, Duhamel would go on to score two Teen Choice Award nominations (via IMDb ). After a turn in the 2006 horror movie "Turistas," and another Teen Choice Award nomination, Duhamel found his permanent footing in Hollywood as the second leading man in Michael Bay's " Transformers " series. His performance as William Lennox remains the most popular credit in his file.

While playing Lennox in three "Transformers" films, Duhamel also found himself making a plunge into romantic comedies, like "New Year's Eve" and "Safe Haven." Though not many of his films found critical success, especially 2013's "Movie 43," which has a 4%  Rotten Tomatoes  score, Duhamel was quickly establishing himself as a credible leading man in the industry. He'd eventually play the dad in " Love, Simon " and Gilbert Galvan Jr. in the biopic "Bandit." "Blackout," however, is Duhamel's first bona fide commanding lead, as he carries the film. His filmography is not yet filled out like some of his peers, but he possesses a charm and panache that will keep him in top billings for years to come.

Abbie Cornish

Abbie Cornish in Sucker Punch

One of the most underrated leading women of the last 15 years in Australian and American cinema, Abbie Cornish has quietly amassed a stellar filmography. Her first breakout role came in 2004 when she played Heidi in "Somersault" and earned an Australian Film Institute Award and a Film Critics Circle of Australia Award for best actress (via IMDb ). She'd back that performance up two years later in "Candy," when she starred alongside Heath Ledger and Geoffrey Rush.

Since the mid-2000s, Cornish has become a budding star outside of her home country, as well. In 2011, she played Sweet Pea in Zack Snyder's " Sucker Punch ," alongside Emma Browning, Jena Malone, and Vanessa Hudgens, and, a year later, was the top-billed actress in Martin McDonagh's "Seven Psychopaths." Her work has pivoted toward less chaotic entries since 2012, as she had a role in "The Girl Who Invented Kissing" and played the wife of Woody Harrelson's main character in " Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri " in 2017. She also co-stars with John Krasinski in "Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan." Returning to the action genre, Cornish makes a memorable turn in "Blackout" as Anna.

Omar Chaparro

Omar Chaparro in Nailed It Mexico

Since the beginning of his career, Mexican actor Omar Chaparro provided the Spanish dub for familiar and infamous roles in animated films. He voiced Syndrome in "The Incredibles," Abuelita in "Hoodwinked!," Po in the "Kung Fu Panda" franchise, and Uncle Ugo in "Luca." His most famous voice role, however, has been in " Detective Pikachu ," where he plays Sebastian, a Pokemon trainer accompanied by the legendary Charizard.

In 2018, he played Senor Gabriel in "Show Dogs," alongside Will Arnett, Ludacris, and Natasha Lyonne, as well as taking a supporting role in Rob Greenberg's remake of the 1987 romantic comedy, "Overboard." Most of Chaparro's work, however, has been done in Hispanic cinema, as he has been the lead in "Compadres," "No Manches Frida," and "Marcianos vs. Mexicanos." In 2019, he was the host of "¡Nailed It! México," a Mexican Netflix spin-off of the bake-off reality show "Nailed It!" "Blackout" is Chaparro's highest-billed American film performance to date.

Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy in 48 Hrs.

The most-seasoned veteran in the "Blackout" cast, Nick Nolte has been acting in major films since 1975, when he played Bo Hollinger in "Return to Macon County." He'd make appearances in "North Dallas Forty" and "Cannery Row" before striking gold as Inspector Jack Cates in "48 Hrs.," alongside budding superstar Eddie Murphy. "48 Hrs.," which made Murphy a household name and vaulted Nolte into leading man status, remains one of the most-underrated buddy cop films of all time.

Nolte would achieve a mid-career renaissance in the 1990s after starring in "Another 48 Hrs." with Murphy, Martin Scorcese's " Cape Fear " remake with Robert De Niro, and Terrence Malick's "The Thin Red Line" and Paul Schrader's "Affliction" in 1998. The next 10 years for Nolte wouldn't achieve the same successes as the previous, but he did play memorable roles in Ang Lee's "Hulk," "Over the Hedge," and "Tropic Thunder." Since earning an Oscar nomination for his role in "Affliction" and "The Prince of Tides" in the '90s (via IMDb ), Nolte has achieved very consistent acclaim in a wide variety of roles, which made him a perfect and undeniable casting choice in "Blackout."

Barbara de Regil

Barbara de Regil in Rosario Tijeras

"Blackout" is Barbara de Regil's first foray into American cinema, as she's spent the last decade doing Spanish-language work both in film and television. Her first role came was a starring one in 2011, in the Mexican telenovela "Bajo el alma." Since then, she's done performances in films like "Happy Times," "Loca por el trabajo," and "Mutiny of the Worker Bees."

de Regil's most famous role is her turn as Rosario in "Rosario Tijeras," which she played from 2016 until 2019. Most recently, she was seen in the telenovela "Cabo" and the Mexican comedy series "40 y 20." After "Blackout," de Regil is set to star as the main lead in "Parientes a la fuerza," a Spanish-language romcom series on Telemundo.

Hernan Del Riego

Hernan Del Riego speaking into a microphone

Hernan Del Riego has been acting in credited films and television series since 1993, when he played Drogadicto in "Repartidores de muerte." During the mid-2000s, Del Riego played small roles in various TV series, like "Zapata: Amor en rebeldia" and "Gregoria la cucaracha." Most notably, he was in the Netflix series "Ingobernable," which featured Kate del Castillo in the leading role.

Del Riego has played supporting roles in the Amazon original "An Unknown Enemy," as well as Netflix's "Crime Diaries: The Candidate." After "Blackout," Del Riego is slated to make an appearance in Humberto Hinojosa Ozcariz's horror film "No Abras La Puerta."

Edison Ruiz

Edison Ruiz in Narcos: Mexico

Since 2003, Edison Ruiz has made a name for himself in Spanish-language television, playing small parts in shows like "Los simuladores," "Montecristo," "Quince anos," and "Drenaje Profundo." In 2014, he had a seven-episode, recurring role in the award-winning, Mexican telenovela "I Don't Trust Men Anymore."

Ruiz's most-famous performance, however, came in 2018, when he played Comandante Mendez in Netflix's "Narcos: Mexico." During his six-episode arc, Ruiz was an important piece of the "Narcos" spin-off, in which an American DEA agent targets Mexican narcos, including the Guadalajara Cartel. After "Blackout," Ruiz will be a part of the "Undocumented (Sin papeles)" cast.

Daniel Farag

Daniel Farag in Dixon Golf: Golf Gods vs. Dixon Golf

Writer, producer, and actor Daniel Farag has a short filmography so far, but he's established himself as an important piece of each production's puzzle, both on-screen and off. In 2007, he produced a short titled "'Tis the Season," and in 2011, he wrote with and starred alongside Don Cheadle in the "Dixon Golf: Golf Gods vs. Dixon Golf" commercial short. Since then, he's taken acting turns in "Tied to a Chair" and "Spaceman," the latter of which starred his "Blackout" co-star Josh Duhamel.

Playing Benny G. in "Blackout," Farag has a small role, but he's also an executive producer on the film. As of now, no upcoming projects of his have been made public, but, with the successes of "Blackout," the next chapter in Farag's career is surely on the not-so-distant horizon.

Lou Ferrigno Jr.

Lou Ferrigno Jr. in SWAT

Though he is the son of bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno, who is best known as the star of the CBS television series "The Incredible Hulk" from 1977 to 1982, Lou Ferrigno Jr. has made a name for himself in Hollywood. Ferrigno made his on-screen debut in a recurring role on "Days of Our Lives" in 2013. Quickly, he became a television staple, providing supporting, recurring roles on shows like "How I Met Your Mother," "Teen Wolf," "The Young and the Restless," and "Nicky, Ricky, Dicky & Dawn."

Ferrigno's most famous role, however, is on the CBS reboot of " S.W.A.T. ," which is based on the 1975 show of the same name. On "S.W.A.T.," Ferrigno played Donovan Rocker for 30 episodes. He's also given supporting performances in " Stargirl ," and "9-1-1." Ferrigno has yet to dive fully into film yet, as "Blackout" is one of his first major roles. He will be returning to television in 2023, when he takes on the recurring role of Ryan in the hit Netflix series " Outer Banks ."

Letterboxd — Your life in film

Forgotten username or password ?

  • Start a new list…
  • Add all films to a list…
  • Add all films to watchlist

Add to your films…

Press Tab to complete, Enter to create

A moderator has locked this field.

Add to lists

Blackout

Where to watch

Directed by Sam Macaroni

A man wakes in a hospital with no memory, and quickly finds himself on the run in a locked down hospital with the Cartel on his tail.

Josh Duhamel Abbie Cornish Omar Chaparro Nick Nolte Lou Ferrigno Jr. Bárbara de Regil Robert Dobson Pedro Lopez Edison Ruiz Jero Medina

Director Director

Sam Macaroni

Producers Producers

Kimberly Hines Bavand Karim Michael Mendelsohn Reza Sixo Safai Jason Sallee Jim Steele

Writer Writer

Van B. Nguyen

Casting Casting

Ryan Kaercher

Editor Editor

Laurence Cohen

Cinematography Cinematography

Mateo Londoño

Executive Producers Exec. Producers

Daniel Farag Santiago Garcia Galvan Angeles Morales Ordorica Joe Mundo Natalie Perrotta

Art Direction Art Direction

Carlos Gamboa

Costume Design Costume Design

Kris Deskins Atzin Hernández

Patriot Pictures Itaca Films Lost Winds Entertainment

Releases by Date

12 oct 2022, 13 oct 2022, 16 oct 2022, 28 oct 2022, releases by country.

  • Digital 16 Netflix
  • Physical 18

Netherlands

  • Digital Netflix
  • Digital 15 Netflix

81 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Viren

Review by Viren ★

There are two types of movies, some movies that are a must-watch, while others that should be avoided at all costs. This one firmly belongs to the latter.

Comicbookfan

Review by Comicbookfan ★

Blackout is a dull, action thriller that's the same as other straight to dvd action films, but this one has some good fight scenes but not much else. It has a weak plot set in one location like die hard but in a hospital. Josh duhamel does good work with the fight scenes but it's just fight after fight with no story or drama or character and the plot gets confusing at the end where it adds in a conspiracy, illuminati angle. Forgettable, soulless, dull film but it's not very long.

Jimbo without the Jet-Set

Review by Jimbo without the Jet-Set ½ 7

As original as supermarket brand canned  Macaroni and cheese!

Cathal

Review by Cathal ★★

This wasn’t the worst. The short run time definitely helps here. Lots of generic action topped up with a weak story. Hey uy holds up alright while it lasts. Won’t be thinking about it tomorrow though.

Noah Thompson

Review by Noah Thompson ★

Hasta la vista, dick.

Can't even remember how I found out this movie existed, but I threw it onto my watchlist a little bit ago. I don't know, maybe I just thought an action film where I could look at Josh Duhamel the whole time would be nice. When a friend randomly posted the John Wick ripoff poster of it in a group chat, that felt like a sign that I should at least as a bit give this a watch. Welp, there goes about eighty minutes of my life. An action film equivalent of watching paint dry, not an original thought or single visual moment in its entire runtime. It's less John Wick than trying to be Die Hard …

Channel Donstar (Roger B. Domian)

Review by Channel Donstar (Roger B. Domian) ★★ 2

You know back when there were video stores and you had a three for five rental that day and you got two movies that you wanted already and we're searching around for something else to rent to make the three movie rental and you saw this movie on the shelf, read the back, sounded interesting, took it home with the other two movies, that were really good, then decided to put on that third film you knew nothing about but rented it anyway.

Well this is that movie.

You want to turn it off cause you can tell it's bad, but there's a lot of fighting and action in it, and it feels like the script was written by a…

joshrowley

Review by joshrowley ★

Brisk; cringey; dumb; generic; repetitive; short; slight; underdeveloped; violent.

Matt

Review by Matt ★½

Cheap drivel seemingly written by someone who subscribes to conspiracy channels on youtube and would almost certainly think the likes of Joe Rogan are 'free thinkers, man'.

Everyone's appalling but some of the action's quite fun and at least none of it is to be taken remotely seriously.

Yo_Roboto

Review by Yo_Roboto ★★ 11

…meets Josh Bourne meets Josh McClane.

Josh Duhamel feels like an experiment designed to create the most basic leading man scientifically possible, but at least he's got a little more grizzle on him than he did during his decades as a B-tier TV pretty boy.

There's also the chance that Duhamel’s engrizzlement is a byproduct of Nick Nolte being some kinda nuclear meltdown of grizz, radiating crag particles, gruffening up anyone who acts near him. An early symptom of Nolte exposure is that your goatee turns grey. Next, your voice will start sounding like a bullfrog deep-throating a bonesaw while bacon cooks in the background.

Even for a DTV actioner, Blackout is dumb and cheap and short. AKA, probably the best case scenario for a movie that opens with a studio vanity card for something called ""Patriot Pictures."" Didn’t hate it!

The director, Sam Macaroni, has one of the more baffling LB filmographies I've come across.

NECC_

Review by NECC_ ★★

Blackout is not good, maybe ok. Predictable and nonsensical (at times) plot helped by a short runtime, good acting overall and the action scenes (though fun) are not the best. Your typical turn-off-your-brain type movie.

Ed Küpfer

Review by Ed Küpfer ★½

Bearded dude wakes up in a hospital with no memory and dozens of killers searching for him. Not good. There is a ton of action, not particularly well performed or shot. No need to dwell on what went wrong here, it's just not very good in general. There is one gag that made me laugh, I'll give it that. But yeah. Not great.

Added to my hitman with amnesia list.

donthitpause

Review by donthitpause ★

Not Timothy Oliphant (NTO) wakes up in a Mexican hospital run by some cartel-ish gang. NTO has been in a car accident, has serious amnesia, and wakes up to an alleged wife who looks like red beans and rice didn't miss her and a best friend who could have been The Jesus's stunt double in The Big Lebowski .

Directed by the ghost of Tony Scott, this plays like Mexican John Wick without any of the shit that makes John Wick John Wick . No I didn't stutter, smartass. But this film did. Blackout damn near made me blackout from boredom, and there were no redeemable features at any point. No great action sequences. No comedy relief from the non-stop kindergarten action.…

Similar Films

The 2nd

Select your preferred backdrop

Select your preferred poster.

  • Documentary
  • Trailer Breakdown
  • DMT News APP
  • Privacy Policy
  • Crime Thriller
  • Drama Thriller
  • Streaming on Netflix

‘Blackout’ Ending, Explained: Does John Cain Find Out Who He Is? What Was In The Case?

Blackout Ending Explained Josh Duhamel as Cain

“What does Marsellus Wallace look like?” Asks Jules Winnfield from Brett in “Pulp Fiction.” Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Vincent Vega pulls out the case he and Jules have been looking for from a cupboard. A bright golden light shine on Vincent’s face from inside the case after he opens it. “We happy?” asks Jules to Vincent. Vincent, with great satisfaction, answers, “Yeah, We happy.” The point we are trying to make here is that all it takes are a few strong moments to establish the significance of a case. The above-mentioned conversation is a part of one of the most famous scenes in cinematic history. And it is just a few people talking about a missing case of significance. But “Blackout,” even with its hour and a half of approx. runtime isn’t able to establish the importance of “the case” on point the way it should have. It rather relies on action and the reactions of the different characters to further the plot revolving around the case, which gets boring after a while. It is John Cain, played by Josh Duhamel, in his pitch-black suit, who manages to help us sit through the film till the end, if at all. There are many other things to talk about in the film. But before that, let’s find out what happens in the film “Blackout”.

Spoilers Ahead

‘Blackout’ Plot Summary: What Is The Film About?

Ethan McCoy (Nick Nolte) of the DEA is carrying out a search inside a burned-down house and is looking for Cain. Unable to find any evidence, he orders his men to track Cain wherever he is. Meanwhile, John Cain wakes up in a Mexican hospital without having any idea of who he is or how he got there. A woman by his side, Anna (Abbie Cornish), claims to be his wife. There is also a guy named Eddie (Omar Chaparro) who is supposed to be his friend. Eddie promises to help him bring his memory back. He then makes his way to the doctor, under whose care Cain is, and threatens to kill his family unless he brings back Cain’s memory by any means necessary.

With time, as Cain’s memory comes back to him in bits and pieces, he finds that those around him aren’t what they seem. There are people in the hospital trying to kill him. He finds out that they are looking for a case he had in his possession before he landed in the hospital. He stole it from General Mondejo, head of the army, someone to whom all the cartels report, and then went off-grid. And since he arrived at the hospital, Eddie has been trying to administer memory drugs to bring his memory back so that he can remember the location of the case. McCoy tells him that he is DEA. Anna tells him that he was recruited by the CIA. With people bent upon killing him and so much information to process, will John Cain be able to come out of his “blackout”?

Who Is John Cain?

John Cain’s memory loss affects his judgments of those around him. It’s like a new life, but he isn’t a newborn who has to learn everything from scratch. A person with memory loss remembers the mother language and is conscious of everything that is around them and the society they live in. They only forget about their identity. The same happened with Cain. What makes coming out of his “blackout” overwhelming is how his mind is bombarding him with all the things he learned as an agent that somehow got buried due to the accident he suffered from.

The film, in exploring how Cain gets back his memory, sways away from the question it apparently intends to answer, i.e., what is inside the case. But the fact is, Cain doesn’t get his memory back either. He just learns about the things that have led him to his present condition. It is only we, the viewers, who are shown his past with Eddie and Ethan. We don’t even get to know Anna, who works for the CIA, or so we are told. This is what makes Cain’s realization (at the end of the film) that Anna is indeed his wife ineffective. If only the film had shown something more about Cain’s past and how he got involved with the cartel and Anna, things would have made more sense and thus been more effective.

Also, Eddie tells Cain that he knew Cain was DEA (McCoy told Cain earlier that he was DEA), and they both decided to “play” DEA by stealing the case and bringing it to General Montejo. Later on, it is Anna who confirms that John Cain is indeed DEA, but he was recruited by the CIA to recover the case. So, we do not really know what Cain intended to do with the case. Did he decide to give it to the CIA or steal it with Eddie? He is processing all the information in a different manner now, and every action of his is instinctive rather than motivated.

‘Blackout’ Ending Explained: What Was Inside The Case?

Toward the end of the film, Anna recovers the case from the doctor’s chamber. We also find out that the doctor actually helped Cain by making him forget his memories so that the bad guys (Eddie and the others) couldn’t kill him. At the very end of “Blackout,” it is revealed that the case has “the names and addresses of the Illuminati”… “the puppeteers and the puppets…” [that run the world]. As cool as it sounds, we don’t get to see anything related to the contents of the case. Even McCoy turns out to be another bad guy trying to get his hands on the case.

By revealing what the case has and how multiple parties want it, the film also puts forth a take on the power struggle. “It’s about order,” says Anna to Cain, addressing the importance of the case. Keeping in mind how information is power during present times, any one person with all that intel (that can “destroy the government,” according to Anna) can certainly become an international threat, compromising relations among nations and causing disorder and chaos. When Cain went off the grid, he compromised the order. Why? Perhaps because he realized how dangerous it could be in the hands of the wrong person. It was Cain’s good fortune that his doctor hid it somewhere where no one could find it unless they looked hard. Anna did.

Anna and Cain run away with the case at the film’s end after killing all of McCoy’s men. Cain shoots McCoy as well, but it’s only a flesh wound. One can address the ending of “Blackout” as an open ending, as there is no knowing what Cain and Anna will do with the case. No single organization should have it in its possession. Such things should be destroyed unless there is a place where they can be locked away until the time comes to bring them out again.

 “Blackout” is a 2022 Drama Thriller film directed by Sam Macaroni.

Shubhabrata Dutta

Netflix’s The Perfect Couple: Did Greer Leave Tag? Why Did She Meet Amelia In The End?

Peacock’s ‘fight night’ true story, explained: where are the robbers now, ‘fight night: the million dollar heist’ episode 2 recap: who robbed chicken man’s party, ‘fight night: the million dollar heist’ episode 1 recap: why didn’t muhammad ali like hudson, more like this, abby in netflix’s the perfect couple: did abby know about merritt’s pregnancy, real-life chicken man in ‘fight night: the million dollar heist’: is gordon williams dead or alive.

  • Write For DMT

COPYRIGHT © DMT. All rights Reserved. All Images property of their respective owners.

movie review blackout 2022

  • Firstpost Defence Summit
  • Entertainment
  • Web Stories
  • Health Supplement
  • First Sports
  • Fast and Factual
  • Between The Lines
  • Firstpost America

movie review blackout 2022

Blackout film review: Josh Duhamel-starrer banks on B-action cliches

Blackout lacks originality though it is fast-paced and should satisfy hardcore action lovers

Blackout film review: Josh Duhamel-starrer banks on B-action cliches

Language: English with Hindi and English subtitle options

Cast: Josh Duhamel, Nick Nolte, Abbie Cornish, Omar Chaparro, Barbara de Regil

Director: Sam Macaroni

Star rating: 2/5

Josh Duhamel wakes up in a hospital with amnesia and discovers cops and gangsters alike are after him for reasons he can’t clearly recall. If you spot The Bourne Identity in that premise, there is a lot of Die Hard thrown into the narrative, too. Blackout is essentially a B-action movie that stitches generic set-pieces, particularly drawing influence from two of the greatest action thrillers Hollywood ever made.

Sam Macaroni’s directorial also reiterates Hollywood’s unending obsession with quickfix thrillers produced on a low budget. The small action film as means of quick returns has survived changing fads over the generations, with only the hero’s face on the poster changing with time. From Charles Bronson to Chuck Norris to Steven Seagal and beyond, action on a budget always finds ready takers. Blackout is only latest in the line, letting Duhamel show off his stuntwork just for kicks.

If the idea was to cater to all-out action, the makers of Blackout are unapologetic in the way they go about it from scene one. As the banner credits make way, Duhamel goes straightaway into the business of kicking butt. His character, which won’t be identified for a long time, is frantically trying to escape from someone or some place, which won’t be clearly explained for even longer. In a way the start of the film nutshells all that defines Blackout , with its fitful editing, frantic cinematography, loud score and choreographed action propping up storytelling that does not involve much brainwork. As the minutes pass, it becomes clear the makers of the film are in no mood to serve novelty. The flipside hits you almost at the same time: The action is fast-paced enough to never let you feel bored despite the film’s lack of originality.

In a film where stunts hold greater significance than story, writer Van B. Nguyen, in her debut big screen project, goes for the minimum plot while creating maximum room for hero, sidekicks and the villains to show off their fighting skills. Duhamel’s hospitalised amnesiac, it soon becomes clear, is called John Cain — the fact that the name bears likeness to Bruce Willis’ Die Hard character John McClane could be coincidental or intentional, take your pick. Cain finds a woman named Anna ( Abbie Cornish ) at his bedside when he wakes up and she claims to be his wife. A weirdly sinister man flaunting every B-movie cliche of the Mexican cartel boss drops in at Cain’s hospital room and identifies himself as Eddie (Omar Chaparro), an old friend. Of course, it doesn’t take Cain long to figure that out Eddie is a Mexican cartel boss, but what shocks our hero is Anna’s revelation that he too works for the cartel.

Blackout follows the tested formula of action films that cater to the lowest common denominator when it comes to dialogues. There isn’t much of imagination, as in everything else. Rather, in keeping with B-movie tradition, the film is laced with lines that conveniently and liberally use the F-word every time the screenplay needs to create drama. So, when Anna tells Cain he works with Eddie in the cartel, his reaction, meant to be a high point baring a hint of ironic humour, is typical: “I have to wake up and be a f**king cartel member, are you bullshi**ing me?!”

With a runtime of less than 90 minutes, Macaroni wastes no time in moving the plot ahead. No sooner has Cain woken up in hospital with memory loss, he realises that Eddie, Anna and a whole lot of others including his doctor are trying to extract information from him about a particular briefcase. No one has an idea about its content but Cain figures it must be something very important.

The brief case of the briefcase is basically what the film is all about. “I need that case,” bad guy Eddie snarls and the assertion, barely nine minutes into the film, tells you how the rest of the story will unfold. The plot is meant to get an added boost of drama with the entry of Nick Nolte as DEA Agent Ethan McCoy. No surprises, he is trying to trace Cain and is after the case, too. The threadbare plot leads up to an obvious trigger for the action to begin. They all want the briefcase, and Cain isn’t in the mood to hand it to any of them. You know how this will end even before the drama actually begins.

Nguyen’s writing is flat, but it brims with use of expletive and also manages to sneak in a nudie scene amidst the heavy-duty flow of action. For a thriller that seeks to hike suspense using its protagonist’s amnesiac state of mind, original twists in this story are far lower than you would expect. Most of the twists, like the stunts, would remind you of several other films in the genre. For instance, the moment McCoy enters the storyline, you know Cain is in for a very different, albeit predictable update on his identity. McCoy reverses the picture of the plot from what Anna and Eddie had Cain believing, and that is the first of many expected cliches that the screenplay unfolds. Most of the twists are written into the narrative to facilitate a non-stop flow of fight scenes.

If Macaroni looks at Jason Bourne to draw inspiration for his amnesiac hero, his idea to trap the hero in a single location — in this case, the hospital building — and unfold his adventure over a single night is inspired by Die Hard . In a different way, John Cain ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time like John McClane. If Macaroni’s directorial execution appears hackneyed, it is because he is too lazy to look beyond generic tropes. There are only so many ways you can beat your adversary in a fist fight or snatch the gun from his hand. The film’s overflow of action cliches, although niftily filmed, ceases to excite after a while unless you are a hardcore lover of the genre who relishes whatever unfolds as long as the stunts keep coming. The thing about the B-action flick is it hasn’t changed over the years, and it won’t. Blackout, with its deliberately heightened tech-specs to maximise the impact of the instant thrills, isn’t the sort of film that bothers about the finer aspects of cinema.

Duhamel fights with whatever he can manage — trays, dishes, boxes and, of course, guns, knives, fists and kicks. If the idea is to reinvent his career as the new Bruce Willis, the actor needs to work with more original scripts. All of the cast including Abbie Cornish robotically go through the motions while playing out generic stereotypes. Nick Nolte’s appearance is a pleasant surprise, though the 80-plus veteran appears a tad over-the-hill to pass off as a hotshot DEA Agent with a knack of cracking complicated cases. Overall, it’s an interesting assortment of actors in a film that fails to live up to their billing. This one’s strictly a one-time watch for action lovers.

Rating: * * (two stars out of five)

Vinayak Chakravorty is a critic, columnist, and film journalist based in Delhi-NCR.

Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News ,  India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook ,  Twitter  and  Instagram .

Latest News

Find us on YouTube

Vantage

Related Stories

'Bigg Boss' fame Nimrit Kaur passes on her role in 'Love Sex Aur Dhokha 2' due to explicit scenes: Report

'Bigg Boss' fame Nimrit Kaur passes on her role in 'Love Sex Aur Dhokha 2' due to explicit scenes: Report

Crew: Singer Badshah drops teaser of his collaboration with Diljit Dosanjh from Kareena Kapoor, Tabu, Kriti Sanon's comedy

Crew: Singer Badshah drops teaser of his collaboration with Diljit Dosanjh from Kareena Kapoor, Tabu, Kriti Sanon's comedy

Anant Ambani-Radhika Merchant's Pre-Wedding Festivities: Saif Ali Khan-Kareena Kapoor, Ranveer Singh-Deepika Padukone exude royalty for the 'Desi Romance' theme

Anant Ambani-Radhika Merchant's Pre-Wedding Festivities: Saif Ali Khan-Kareena Kapoor, Ranveer Singh-Deepika Padukone exude royalty for the 'Desi Romance' theme

WATCH: Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Aamir Khan dance on 'Naatu Naatu' at Anant Ambani-Radhika Merchant's pre-wedding festivities

WATCH: Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Aamir Khan dance on 'Naatu Naatu' at Anant Ambani-Radhika Merchant's pre-wedding festivities

'Bigg Boss' fame Nimrit Kaur passes on her role in 'Love Sex Aur Dhokha 2' due to explicit scenes: Report

  • Movie - Blackout - 2022

movie review blackout 2022

Blackout  (2022)  فقدان الذاكرة

movie review blackout 2022

  • Release Date: 28 November 2022 (US) (more)
  • Genre: Action (more)

After waking up in a hospital with no memory, a man is forced to escape from a dangerous gang, while he struggles to regain his memory and discover his mysterious identity.

  • Sam Macaroni ()
  • Van B. Nguyen ()
  • Josh Duhamel
  • Abbie Cornish
  • Lou Ferrigno Jr.
  • Robert Allen Mukes
  • Omar Chaparro

Watch Online

movie review blackout 2022

  • El Bayt El Abyad
  • 2018 - Series

movie review blackout 2022

  • Jero Medina
  • Bárbara de Regil
  • Pedro Lopez
  • Edison Ruíz
  • Anthony Soto
  • Robert Dobson

movie review blackout 2022

  • Release Date:
  • US [ 28 November 2022 ]
  • Egypt [ 26 October 2022 ]
  • Saudi Arabia [ 13 October 2022 ]
  • Kuwait [ 13 October 2022 ]
  • Lebanon [ 13 October 2022 ]
  • United Arab Emirates [ 13 October 2022 ]
  • Bahrain [ 13 October 2022 ]
  • Iraq [ 13 October 2022 ]
  • Jordan [ 13 October 2022 ]
  • Qatar [ 13 October 2022 ]
  • Oman [ 12 October 2022 ]
  • Censorship:
  • Is this a coloured title?:
  • Box Office:
  • 36,543 (more)

movie review blackout 2022

  • Buy tickets
  • 2023 Summary
  • Riyadh Season 2023
  • Now Playing
  • Coming Soon
  • Egypt Box Office
  • Infographic
  • Video Gallery
  • Ramadan, Eid & Seasons
  • Ramadan 2024
  • TV series 2024
  • Fitr Eid Movies 2024
  • Riyadh Season 2024
  • Adha Eid Movies 2024
  • Egypt Cinemas
  • UAE Cinemas
  • Kuwait Cinemas
  • Lebanon Cinemas
  • Bahrain Cinemas
  • Qatar Cinemas
  • Saudi Cinemas
  • Oman Cinemas
  • Jordan Cinemas
  • Iraq Cinemas
  • About elCinema.com
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Privacy Policy

movie review blackout 2022

Reset Your Password

Fight or Flight: Jeremy Saulnier on Rebel Ridge

movie review blackout 2022

Rebel Ridge. Director Jeremy Saulnier on the set of Rebel Ridge. Cr. Allyson Riggs/Netflix © 2024.

A ferociously satisfying update of “First Blood” with a rustic Southern setting, “Rebel Ridge” furthers writer-director Jeremy Saulnier’s pattern of trapping his protagonists in tight spots and making them fight their way out, even as it recalibrates the grisly survivalism of “Blue Ruin” and “Green Room,” along with the atmospheric tension of his Alaska-set “Hold the Dark,” within a muscular action-throwback frame.   

When Terry Richmond (Aaron Pierre) cycles into the small town of Shelby Springs, intending to post bail for his cousin, it doesn’t take long for local police to run the ex-Marine off the road and confiscate the cash he’s carrying, exploiting a loophole in state law, known as civil asset forfeiture, that allows police to permanently seize a private citizen’s property without charging them with a crime. After confronting local police chief Sandy Burnne (Don Johnson) and learning the department has no intention of releasing his life’s savings, Terry allies himself with troubled court clerk Summer McBride (AnnaSophia Robb) and uncovers evidence of a deeper conspiracy, making it his mission to root out the corruption consuming this remote township.

In Saulnier’s past thrillers, such a pressure-cooker scenario might have escalated quickly, through acts of unfathomably savage violence, but “Rebel Ridge” (streaming Sept. 6 on Netflix) lights its fuse early and lets it burn a while longer, with searing results, across an increasingly ominous set of standoffs between Richmond, Burnne, and his heavily militarized department. Saulnier, who also edited “Rebel Ridge,” is working in a tradition of not only ’70s and ’80s action but also the mid-’60s spaghetti Westerns that preceded them, in which taciturn heroes rode into frontier towns and turned vigilante to save those around them from lawless local order. 

At the film’s core is a committed, star-making turn from Pierre, who imbues Richmond with vivid strength of character, an elegance and emotional intelligence that complements his action-star physicality and is borne out by an exhilarating gear-shift of a twist regarding his mysterious origins. Pierre signed on to star in “Rebel Ridge” after the project had stalled out twice before, first due to pandemic-related production delays in 2020 and then, a year later, after former lead actor John Boyega abruptly exited the production a month into filming, citing family reasons. Saulnier’s partner, Skei, had watched Pierre in Barry Jenkins’ miniseries “The Underground Railroad” and suggested him as a potential replacement. Within minutes of their first Zoom, Saulnier knew he’d found the right Terry Richmond, and the project successfully resumed production in the spring of 2022, wrapping in late July. 

With “Rebel Ridge” finally hitting Netflix on Sept. 6, Saulnier sat down with RogerEbert.com to discuss the influence of punk-rock and Sergio Leone, his obsession with vehicular carnage, and why, more than a decade later, “Blue Ruin” remains his “north star” as a director. 

This interview has been edited and condensed. 

You grew up in the punk and hardcore scene, and that background has influenced all your work, especially “Green Room,” though there’s a certain black-metal sensibility to “Hold the Dark” as well. “Rebel Ridge” opens with Iron Maiden’s “The Number of the Beast.” How else did your love of music inform this film?

Music is always infused into my filmmaking. Iron Maiden was my first idea for that opening scene: how could I start with a bang, my way? Not in this contrived way where it doesn’t belong, but I wanted us to get into it, set something up, and immediately pull out the rug from under our guy, Terry Richmond. This amazing, majestic, rally-cry metal provided an emotional charge. I don’t usually do slow, creeping stuff. It’s like, “Let’s go in hard , guys.” 

A lot of my guys and my girls—like Bad Brains and Stormtroopers of Death (SOD)—are from the DC area, with punk backgrounds, and there are little touches infused in “Rebel Ridge,”  though not as much as in “Green Room,” of course, which takes place in a venue with throbbing music throughout. Here, the device was Terry’s headphones, when we hear the music subjectively versus when we hear it objectively. Even when he’s talking to Don Johnson and Bad Brains is coming through his headphones, I mostly use it as source music. I don’t do a lot of needle drops. I find ways to integrate it into Terry’s subjective experience. 

There was one little mishap in the sound mix. When Terry’s riding up a hill, he has Bad Brains coming out of his earphones, and it’s scripted to be the first time you hear it objectively, so it’s very quiet and buried in the mix. We’re not hearing what he’s hearing; we’re hearing the environment around him, and he’s isolated. But we fucked it up. [ laughs ] I didn’t write the proper email, and it came in hot in the mix as a needle drop. But I was like, “Holy shit, this is so much better.”

Music is always a big part of it, for me. There was actually a song I had integrated into another scene, but we couldn’t license it. There was some kind of legal dispute, so that went away. But, yeah, I love it. Music adds to the rhythm, the texture. Part of why I make movies is to create cinema for my high school friends, who are also in my punk-rock squad, who have bands and have written music—some of which appeared in “Green Room.” I make movies for a very select audience, hoping that they will resonate with a much broader part of the cinematic space.

“Rebel Ridge” shot in Louisiana, and the film is set in an unnamed Southern town, but its cinematic language is that of the Western, especially Sergio Leone’s Man with No Name Trilogy. How conscious were you of working within a Western framework with this film? 

Yeah, what you said! [ laughs ] ’Tis true. The obvious reference is “First Blood,” but that came later in the process when I realized I was pitting a guy against a small-town police force. The origin is more of the Western genre, and the first character I thought of is The Man with No Name. Terry rides into town on a bike, not a horse, but it’s the same concept. The less you know about his past, the better. 

There are some highly expository exchanges, but I made sure, at least in my eyes, they were well-earned and justified. If Terry didn’t have to say a word, he wouldn’t. But he’s trying to glean information. He’s trying to get from one place to another. He’s trying to understand this goofy, corrupt system that’s infuriating in its levels of bureaucracy and lack of accountability. I always thought of Terry as a Western character. We joked about tumbleweed rolling through the frame. 

That was very much akin to “Hold the Dark,” which I love. There were even some sequences in “Hold the Dark” I was directly referencing, because I loved the way they paid off on screen. One of those was with James Badge Dale and Julian Black Antelope, as Marium and Cheeon, in the doorway before the big shootout in “Hold the Dark.” It’s just two guys talking. I’d wanted to recreate that experience. As a filmmaker, I love that quiet tension, hearing the environment, and having this back-and-forth between two guys standing there. 

In “Rebel Ridge,” it’s in front of the police station, between Aaron Pierre and Don Johnson. I used the same technique I used in “Hold the Dark,” with a single camera on each of them, and let them do all the heavy lifting. I gave them space to find options and angles as far as their performances, but it was about keeping it simple and letting them lead the way. Hearing that charged dialogue, spoken aloud by those two actors, was probably my favorite day on set.

Rebel Ridge (Netflix) Jeremy Saulnier Interview

With “Rebel Ridge,” you’re examining corrupt systems and the cultures of complicity that uphold them, in the context of a criminal conspiracy that’s taken root in Shelby Springs. This made me think about “Green Room,” how this white-power movement is festering within a working-class community in rural Oregon, enabled by people of different political affiliations out of this shared sense of financial desperation, which is at play in “Rebel Ridge” as well. 

I have an obsession with justice—in my life, in my travels, and in the workplace. I certainly can infuse my very personal experience into my films and put it in a broader, more cinematic context that has more meaning to viewers. I’m an expert in the shit that I deal with, just like anyone else is at home. Whether you feel supported, buried, or stifled at work, everyday frustrations can play into much bigger stories, because in the end, it’s all fight or flight. The stakes are high if it’s your life, your livelihood. 

With “Rebel Ridge,” my research led the way, as far as the shocking revelation of how constitutional guarantees are not at all guaranteed. And it’s not always because of evil systems trying to oppress the marginalized. It’s because there’s no fucking money. People will disavow their place in these systems, and they’ll justify it through saying it’s for the greater good of putting food on their family table. I was certainly aware of shedding light on the practice of civil asset forfeiture and on municipal courts that just can’t afford to guarantee indigent defense to those who need it. However, as a filmmaker, I was making sure I utilized that in a narrative sense, not to project any beliefs or politics. I mine it narratively. 

What I did study, that I could bring from my own life, is human interaction and how we can behave. We can be cruel, and we can be just. That’s where I could infuse my direct, emotional, personal knowledge and inject that into the story in a cathartic way. That’s how the film fused, for me: channeling the energy that I have, that everyone has, and putting it on screen and making it bigger and more cinematic, to offer everyone at home a harrowing yet cathartic experience.

Aaron Pierre is a powerhouse in “Rebel Ridge.” In terms of delivering that kind of experience, he’s carrying the film on his back. Tell me about working with Aaron and finding the character of Terry Richmond.

That’s hard to discuss, only because it seems so effortless. Aaron has such great respect for the text. He’s from the stage, so that’s his discipline. The amount of reverence he had for the material, and the excitement he brought to fulfilling the vision as it was on the page, was incredible. He fully dedicated himself. Things would come up, as minor as a little vernacular that he needed, because this is written in a very DC/Virginia public school vernacular that I grew up with. 

Again, reaching back to my youth, I used the vernacular of my high school friends to write Terry. Aaron eased right into it, from his accent to his inflection. We just worked on the details. It seemed too good and too easy to be true, Aaron’s thirst for knowledge, for broader context, to know where he’s from, to see the prop license that we’re giving him, to know what his goal is.

In terms of physicality, Aaron already knew Keith Woulard, our stunt coordinator, from “The Underground Railroad.” They were very close, which was wonderful to have in jumping into this kind of movie. Aaron called him uncle. The whole film’s on his shoulders; he’s in all but four or five scenes out of 135. He had to not only just memorize dense dialogue scenes but also be ready to lift humans over his head and smash them onto the ground — safely. [ laughs ] 

Rebel Ridge (Netflix) Jeremy Saulnier Interview

Two standout sequences in “Rebel Ridge” take place in front of the police station. You mentioned the first, which is this dialogue-driven standoff between Terry Richmond and Chief Sandy Burnne involving the acronym PACE. But I wanted to ask you about the second, where all hell breaks loose, kicking up dust and dirt, with baton rounds and flashbangs in the mix opposite a hail of gunfire. What were some of the challenges of filming that climactic sequence?

I can’t even imagine what Aaron was going through. I tried to, of course, be there for him, but if our camera was off by two inches and we didn’t get the eyeline right, or the smoke drifted in the wrong direction because the wind shifted, we were fucked, and we had to do it again and again and again. 

The physicality asked of him—in the Louisiana summer, with a record 128 degrees Fahrenheit with the heat index–-was dangerous. We had to be very cognizant of everyone’s safety. We would only shoot for a small window and then take cooling breaks. He was lifting real humans over his head. The choreography was dialed in, but we were always playing catch up, including with lightning storms requiring us to shut down and then come back in. 

Directing was the easiest part because I was presiding over talented people from the special effects team and stunt team, as well as ensemble actors, Aaron himself, and the camera operators. We had done a lot of prep. We had shot that sequence in video, as we found out how we wanted to design the scene. I edited that footage myself, so I knew the cut points and the angles. Pushing through the execution and bearing witness to it was easy. I was more of an audience member because it was so dialed in. Aaron carried the burden, and he overachieved as usual.

In your films, there’s always a car: the hollowed-out Pontiac Bonneville of “Blue Ruin,” the van in “Green Room,” the truck Vernon annihilates in “Hold the Dark.” In “Rebel Ridge,” that shootout takes place in and around police cruisers, and the details of who’s driving what type of car in that department is telling. What role do you see cars playing in your films?  

That’s a good question — tough one, though. Maybe it’s me playing with matchbox cars in the mud when I was a little kid. My dad was a car guy. He bought old vehicles, and he loved fixing them up and taking care of them. Even, for me, watching the end of “Thunderheart,” shot by Roger Deakins, you’re watching a bunch of Plymouth K-cars go full-out over a dusty tundra and kick up real dirt. I think cars are so cinematic. I fight so hard not to do green-screen stage work. Cars have a life to them. You can feel the vibration, the exhaust, the light playing off them. 

The role that vehicles play in this narrative is natural to the environment. Of course, Terry’s on a bike; that’s his hero car, his picture vehicle. The police vehicles were required to tell this story. However, I did differentiate between the officers who get the old Crown Vics versus the new, improved Challengers. We even talk about the fleets and how the logistics of a police force dictate that you have to have a diversified fleet; in case of a recall, you cannot have all your cars taken away. I love those details, which I learned while researching the movie. 

The hero picture vehicle, of course, would be the Ford F-350 dually. Did I know it was a “Lethal Weapon 2” homage when I wrote it? I don’t know, but it certainly came to mind when I was pulling down a wall with a dually. [ laughs ] The turbocharger engine on that vehicle sounds like a jet engine. It is me playing in the sandbox like when I was a kid. Beyond the necessity of having to get from one place to another in Louisiana, cars have a lot of impact cinematically, with all this literal weight, and they can carve through that dust and mud. Visually, there’s nothing like it. 

Shooting all that roadwork was intense. I don’t think a lot of films get that level of support. I’ve done TV, [including directing the first two episodes of “True Detective” season 3, for HBO,] and you don’t even ask that question; you’re going to make up eight-page days of people pretending to drive on a stage. But “Beverly Hills Cop,” for example, has such a stunning opening, with this big fucking vehicle smashing through other vehicles, and it’s undeniably real. The force that I felt from this action-comedy opening is more than what I’ve felt when I see big spectacle action movies. I just gravitate towards that intuitively.

Where you place the camera in the vehicle, too, next to or behind the drivers as they’re crashing into the sides of other cars, compounds that impact. 

You’re subjective, you’re with the driver, you’re with our guy. A lot of the car-smashing in “Rebel Ridge” is unspectacular, as far as flipping and exploding goes, but you feel such a brute force. The camera jars. We did lots of visual effects to make it seamless when Terry smashes into the cruiser. I don’t need to have everything explode, but I need it all to feel real so that the impacts can reverberate into the audience.

It’s been a decade since “Blue Ruin” hit theaters. Though it wasn’t your first feature film, it was a breakout moment for you and your collaborators. Looking back, what does “Blue Ruin” signify to you these days? 

It’s very personal. “Blue Ruin” is always the high bar. Who knows if I can ever replicate that experience? It was self-funded, by and large, with Kickstarter funds as well. There were no expectations, and it was a very pure expression. I had a lot of fun, and I am very proud of it as a work of art. Getting into the Directors’ Fortnight section and premiering it at Cannes was a life-changing experience. There’s a part of me that’s always still wondering how I can navigate the industry, and do bigger and better projects, but tap into that filmmaking experience. It’s always going to be the north star, for me.

What’s next for you? 

Things come and go, as far as development. I always have something in my back pocket I can control, and I usually default to that, because I don’t have the leverage of a Hollywood heavyweight, but I also have my own terms. I’m very precious about protecting the art. I love collaborating but, if something lines up, I’ve always thought of myself as a director first, and I’ll hop on projects if I can. In the meantime, I train myself to not ever rely upon gatekeepers. While I’m pursuing these bigger projects, if I’m at home writing, I feel like my insurance policy is in place. If something doesn’t work out, then I’ve got something to present. My scripts are my scripts. I own and control them, and I have a lot of love for them. But if something better comes along, my shit goes on a shelf, and I go rock-n-roll. 

That’s the plan, at least. I’m tinkering with a new script. I’m in love with it and enjoying the experience. But when “Rebel Ridge” is released, I’m just going to celebrate that moment and keep an eye out for whatever opportunities might arise.

“Rebel Ridge” is streaming on Netflix on September 6.

movie review blackout 2022

Isaac Feldberg

Isaac Feldberg is an entertainment journalist currently based in Chicago, who’s been writing professionally for nine years and hopes to stay at it for a few more.

Leave a comment

Related articles.

Mike Gustafson Alexander Öhrstrand Interview, Paradise Is Burning

Female Filmmakers in Focus: Mika Gustafson and Alexander Öhrstrand

movie review blackout 2022

The Adams Family Gets Goopy in Hell Hole

movie review blackout 2022

Tina Mabry and Edward Kelsey Moore on the Joy and Uplift of The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat

movie review blackout 2022

​Subjective Reality: Larry Fessenden on Crumb Catcher, Blackout, and Glass Eye Pix

Popular reviews.

movie review blackout 2022

The Girl in the Pool

movie review blackout 2022

Irena’s Vow

movie review blackout 2022

Rebel Ridge

movie review blackout 2022

Carol Doda Topless at the Condor

The best movie reviews, in your inbox.

IMAGES

  1. Blackout (2022) Movie Review

    movie review blackout 2022

  2. Blackout (2022)

    movie review blackout 2022

  3. How to watch and stream Blackout

    movie review blackout 2022

  4. Blackout (2022)

    movie review blackout 2022

  5. Blackout (2022)

    movie review blackout 2022

  6. Blackout (2022) Review

    movie review blackout 2022

VIDEO

  1. Blackout Movie Review

  2. Blackout Movie Teaser

  3. BLACKOUT Trailer Review

  4. Blackout (2023) || Scary movies || Video review

  5. Movie Review: Blackout

  6. The Blackout Movie Review

COMMENTS

  1. Blackout (2022)

    Blackout. After waking up in a Mexican hospital with no memory of his past, a man finds himself being hunted by various cartel factions who are all looking for something he stole. Watch Blackout ...

  2. Blackout (2022)

    Blackout: Directed by Sam Macaroni. With Josh Duhamel, Abbie Cornish, Omar Chaparro, Nick Nolte. A man wakes in a hospital with no memory, and quickly finds himself on the run in a locked down hospital with the Cartel on his tail. He scrambles to find his true identity in the most vicious way.

  3. Blackout

    It's a somewhat dimwitted thriller, sloppily plotted. But the fights are pretty good — and there are a LOT of them. And Duhamel always gives fair value, even in a B-picture. Full Review ...

  4. Blackout movie review & film summary (2024)

    Fessenden's "Blackout," a werewolf psychodrama, showcases his usual attention to performance and character-driven details. That compliment may seem surprising given that we're talking about a low-budget monster movie where the lead and a few supporting cast members deliver amateurish performances. Everybody's a character in a Larry ...

  5. Blackout (2022) Review

    Regardless of the reason, it's a welcome addition to the film. Plotwise, Blackout isn't quite as impressive. The basic plot is a bit of Die Hard and a bit of Trauma Center mixed up with a bit of Bourne. Thankfully the pace is cranked up much higher than Assault on VA-33 the other recent Die Hard in a hospital film, so the lack of ...

  6. Blackout Movie Review

    Parents Need to Know. Parents need to know that Blackout is a 2022 action movie in which Josh Duhamel plays a man who wakes up in a Mexican hospital with amnesia while surrounded by violent cartel members. Expect a lot of action movie violence, including lots of fight scenes involving guns, machine guns, assault rifles, knives,….

  7. Blackout (2022 film)

    Blackout; Poster. Directed by: Sam Macaroni: Written by: Van B. Nguyen ... Brandon Campbell: Release date. October 12, 2022 () Country: United States: Language: English: Blackout is a 2022 American action crime thriller film directed by Sam Macaroni and ... The film has a 20% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on five reviews. [6] References ...

  8. REVIEW: "Blackout" (2022)

    REVIEW: "Blackout" (2022) Here's another movie tapping into the well-worn 'hero with amnesia' premise. You know the ones - the protagonist wakes up unable to remember who they are. Soon they're shooting it out with a bunch of goons who want to kill them, all while trying to piece back together their memory. This latest spin on the ...

  9. Blackout (2022)

    As villains go, Eddie is far more charming than cruel. However, nothing is a cake walk for Cain in "Blackout." Clocking in at 81 agile minutes, ten of which the end credits take up, "Blackout" emerges as a suspenseful cat & mouse melodrama with Cain, Eddie, and Anna swapping lead with each other. 6/10.

  10. Blackout (2022) Film Reviews

    Blackout (2022) October 5, 2022 Which Film.com Action. Published on: 5/10/22. Director: Sam Macaroni 95 minutes. Release Date: 1st October 2022. Abbie Cornish Josh Duhamel Nick Nolte. WATCH/BUY ON AMAZON PRIME. A man wakes up after a car crash incident with no memory and is hunted by the cartel as he tries to build his memories back up.

  11. Blackout (2022) Ending, Explained: What Is Inside the Case?

    October 12, 2022. Netflix's 'Blackout' is an action thriller film directed by Sam Macaroni that stars Josh Duhamel (' Jupiter's Legacy ') as John Cain, a man dealing with memory loss. He wakes up in a hospital without any recollection of his past. Soon, Cain finds himself fighting for survival as a dangerous cartel leader, and DEA ...

  12. Blackout Summary, Trailer, Cast, and More

    Details. Blackout (2022) is a thriller directed by Sam Macaroni. It stars Josh Duhamel as Cain, a man who wakes up in a Mexican hospital with no memory of his identity. As he struggles to piece together his past, he must navigate a dangerous criminal underworld. The film features Abbie Cornish, Nick Nolte, and Omar Chaparro in supporting roles.

  13. The Ending Of Netflix's Blackout Explained

    The Ending Of Netflix's Blackout Explained. Netflix. By Dustin Pinney Oct. 27, 2022 3:50 pm EST. "Blackout" is a lean action thriller about a man suffering from post-traumatic amnesia following a ...

  14. Blackout (2022) Movie Ending, Explained

    Anushka Rao October 21, 2022. Director by Sam Macaroni 'Blackout 2022' is a suspense thriller starring Josh Duhamel - a towering figure who fisticuffs himself out of a nasty chase by the cartel who are after one suitcase containing documents that would oust international organized crime. With a DEA agent working two sides of the law, John ...

  15. Blackout (2022)

    Blackout is a film directed by Sam Macaroni with Nick Nolte, Abbie Cornish, Josh Duhamel, Omar Chaparro .... Year: 2022. Original title: Blackout. Synopsis: A man wakes in a hospital with no memory, and quickly finds himself on the run in a locked down hospital with the Cartel on his tail. He scrambles to find his true identity in the most vicious way.You can watch Blackout through flatrate on ...

  16. Blackout

    Larry Fessenden has made a career out of demonstrating that genre movies have the same capacity to confront social issues as serious dramas. The defiantly independent filmmaker behind the New York-based production company Glass Eye Pix, Fessenden uses horror in allegorical terms, applying his scrappy, low-budget approach to sometimes ...

  17. Where You've Seen The Cast Of Netflix's Blackout Before

    In October 2022, the company added "Blackout," a thrilling, action-packed movie about a man, Cain (Josh Duhamel), who wakes up in a Mexican hospital with no memory of his past.

  18. ‎Blackout (2022) directed by Sam Macaroni • Reviews, film

    Josh Duhamel Abbie Cornish Omar Chaparro Nick Nolte Lou Ferrigno Jr. Bárbara de Regil Robert Dobson Pedro Lopez Edison Ruiz Jero Medina. 81 mins More at IMDb TMDb. Sign in to log, rate or review.

  19. BLACKOUT (2022) Netflix movie review by the WTF critic

    Oct 13, 2022. --. Why the fuck should you watch "Blackout"? · You are a deaf fan of Josh Duhamel. · You watch all the movies that have hand to hand combat in it, to learn and become a better ...

  20. 'Blackout' Ending, Explained: Does John Cain Find Out Who He Is? What

    Unable to find any evidence, he orders his men to track Cain wherever he is. Meanwhile, John Cain wakes up in a Mexican hospital without having any idea of who he is or how he got there. A woman by his side, Anna (Abbie Cornish), claims to be his wife. There is also a guy named Eddie (Omar Chaparro) who is supposed to be his friend.

  21. Blackout (2022)

    A review on 2022 Movie, BlackoutLike, Comment, and Subscribe!Follow me on Instagram: therailestreviewsTimecode00:00 - Intro00:14 - Synopsis00:31 - The Good02...

  22. Blackout film review: Josh Duhamel-starrer banks on B ...

    Director: Sam Macaroni. Star rating: 2/5. Josh Duhamel wakes up in a hospital with amnesia and discovers cops and gangsters alike are after him for reasons he can't clearly recall. If you spot The Bourne Identity in that premise, there is a lot of Die Hard thrown into the narrative, too. Blackout is essentially a B-action movie that stitches ...

  23. Movie

    Movie. US. 91 minutes. Released. مصري. +16. Release Date: 28 November 2022 (US) (more) Genre: Action (more) After waking up in a hospital with no memory, a man is forced to escape from a dangerous gang, while he struggles to regain his memory and discover his mysterious identity.

  24. Fight or Flight: Jeremy Saulnier on Rebel Ridge

    A ferociously satisfying update of "First Blood" with a rustic Southern setting, "Rebel Ridge" furthers writer-director Jeremy Saulnier's pattern of trapping his protagonists in tight spots and making them fight their way out, even as it recalibrates the grisly survivalism of "Blue Ruin" and "Green Room," along with the atmospheric tension of his Alaska-set "Hold the Dark ...