Movie Review: 'Flinch'

“She didn’t flinch.” That’s the reason that professional killer, Joe Doyle (Daniel Zovatto) gives to his mother (Cathy Moriarty) for why he didn’t kill a witness to a murder he committed. It’s based off of a superstition passed down to Joe from his father (Steven Bauer), himself a killer. Joe’s father once let a man go because that man, whom Dad was going to kill, didn’t flinch. To Joe’s dad, that meant that the man had something in him, something to live for.

When Joe is finishing off a hit on a corrupt City Councilman in Los Angeles, the aftermath of the kill is discovered by that man’s assistant, Mia Rose (Tilda Cobham-Hervey). When Joe chases her down and sets to tie up this loose end, she doesn’t flinch and his father’s act of mercy is his first thought. Instead of killing Mia, Joe takes her back home where he lives with his mother, Gloria, who is less merciful. She intends to do the job herself until Joe stops her.

Now Joe has a hostage and another big problem he’s not aware of. Mia had been put in the Councilman’s office by a pair of Joe’s associates. In fact, these are the associates who paid Joe to kill the Councilman, who is played in an entertaining cameo by comedian Tom Segura. Mia was supposed to check in with her bosses and let them know everything about the Councilman that she can dig up. When she doesn’t check in, the ball starts rolling on Joe’s employer finding out that he left a witness alive.

Flinch has one more big twist but I won’t spoil it here. First time director Cameron Van Hoy has crafted a solid if somewhat low rent thriller. Though it takes a little bit to get going and it meanders a little in the middle, the whole of Flinch is quite entertaining. I enjoyed the way Van Hoy, who also wrote the screenplay, ups the stakes throughout with genuinely unexpected twists and turns.

Much does depend on your willingness to buy into Joe’s love at first sight with Mia, which neither actor does well to sell to us in their early interaction. However, by the end, I was willing to buy in on Flinch. There is just enough excitement and clever plotting to keep Flinch from merely becoming a collection of gangster clichés. Much of the credit goes to star Daniel Zovatto who brings a soulfulness to Joe that the movie utilizes well.

In the lore of the movie, Joe is not really a killer. Rather, he’s taken the mantle of killer from his father in order to pay off a debt that his father owes to the gangland family in the movie. That backstory may not seem like much but Zovatto and Cathy Moriarty bring the sorrow and toughness that this backstory brings to wonderful life. The mother-son chemistry between Zovatto and Moriarty is another strength of Flinch.

Flinch doesn’t reinvent the genre wheel, it lives with many of the thriller/gangster/hitman, genre conventions. What Director Cameron Van Hoy does is what many smart, genre directors do, he finds interesting ways to portray well worn tropes. Consider it something akin to the movie version of ‘upcycling,’ taking well worn material and giving it new life and purpose. You recognize the genre conventions but they don’t appear stale or worn out in this presentation.

Strong performances, clever plotting and a solid star turn from Daniel Zovatto make Flinch a much better movie than I anticipated. I am exposed to so many gritty dramas and Italian accented threats in my line of work that I tend to be pessimistic about a premise like this. Thankfully, Flinch is strong enough to overcome my pessimism. Flinch arrives on Video On Demand rental services on Friday, January 21st.