Next Exit (2022)

… which is never make a promise to the audience that you can’t deliver on. The first 3 minutes of this film sets up a premise so outrageously compelling that it would not surprise me if another film-maker grabs it and makes a proper movie about it down the road. However, and this is the point, Mali Elfman, the first-time Director of Next Exit, does nothing with it. Just sort of leaves it hanging, a constant reminder for the audience of what this movie could have been. That said, this is a not-bad road movie, and a so-so rom-com, but any attempt to call this science fiction is stretching it. The kind of film where, if you were flying NY to London, you might get hooked somewhere over the Atlantic. Maybe. And, oh yeah. Elfman has this really weird talent for repeatedly miscasting former model Karen Gillan (of Dr Who fame). Elfman produced THE PARTY IS JUST BEGINNING, 2018, where Gillan was so off-character it seemed as though she was deliberately trying to implode her own career. In this film, she is barely recognizable. ((Designated “IMDb Top Reviewer.” Please check out my list “167+ Nearly-Perfect Movies (with the occasional Anime or TV miniseries) you can/should see again and again (1932 to the present))