One of These Days: Film Review
Ever heard of a “hands on” contest? Neither had I, but it’s a real competition and the focus of Joe Cole‘s new drama One of These Days.
Inspired by the Texan “Hands on a Hardbody” competition, Hands On is an annual endurance contest in which 24 contestants stand around a pickup truck for days with one hand on the vehicle. The last person left standing wins the truck. The contestants are allowed five-minute breaks every hour for food, rest and the bathroom but they cannot sleep or lean their weight against the truck, so it’s a test of their mental strength while sleep deprived. The event is organised by Joan (Carrie Preston), the PR for a local car dealership, and the featured contestant is Kyle (Cole), a fast-food employee desperately in need of a new set of wheels.
The success of this film hinges upon us caring about Kyle, his wife Maria (Callie Hernandez) and their baby and it fails to do that because he’s a supporting character in Joan’s story instead of the lead. We never get inside his head and that makes what happens at the end (I don’t want to spoil!) come out of nowhere. It makes no sense and feels like a cheap, bleak twist at the end of an otherwise solid story.
To make matters worse, the film doesn’t end there and decides to give us more insight into Kyle and his home life but it all feels pointless and a classic example of too little too late. The conclusion was even more unsatisfying because it left a couple of plot threads hanging. There is a reveal about another contestant that shook the story up and made me feel excited about where it was going to go – and then nothing came of it!
The concept of the film is interesting, Cole and Preston are good, and I liked watching the contestants become increasingly exhausted and dishevelled as they battled sleep deprivation. But the final act came out of the blue and annoyed the hell out of me. And why is the film called One of These Days instead of Hands On?! Not for me.
In cinemas from Friday 1st April