What You Wish For **** (2023, Nick Stahl, Tamsin Topolski, Randy Vasquez) – Classic Movie Review 12,917

Nicholas Tomnay’s cool and calculating 2023 thriller film What You Wish For is a black comedy little gem, with Nick Stahl excellent as Ryan, a down-on-his-luck chef with gambling debt problems, who flees to the Latin American villa of an old chef friend.

Writer/ director Nicholas Tomnay’s cool and calculating 2023 thriller film What You Wish For is a black comedy little gem, with Nick Stahl excellent as Ryan, a down-on-his-luck chef with gambling debt problems, who flees to the Latin American villa of an old chef friend who appears to be living an extraordinary life. There Ryan assumes the identity of another man, always a temptation but also a pesky problem for desperate characters in thrillers, as nothing is quite as it seems at first, and poor Ryan is fast out of his frying pan and into the fire. He’s gonna get scalded, possibly burnt.

The Latin American villa is stunning, quite a character in the film, and the cast are great, playing the lowlifes in high fashion. Nick Stahl looks desperate, at the end of his tether, and plays desperate desperately well. Somehow, he keeps us on his character’s side. Maybe it’s the great cooking he does. Tasty, tasty, very very tasty. Tamsin Topolski is brilliantly chilly as the English events organiser Imogene, Detective Ruiz is compellingly amusing as Detective Ruiz, the oddly bemused cop on the case, Penelope Mitchell is hard as nails as over-inquisitive tourist Alice, Juan Carlos Messier is nice and creepy as Imogene‘s factotum/ henchman Maurice, and Brian Groh is ideal as the other chef, Jack.

The film is quite strong meat, rare even nearly raw, but it is super tasty and a dish served with elegance and style. That extends fully to the smart cinematography by Mateo Guzmán and the attractively unusual score created by composers Jeff Russo and Tracie Turnbull, who did it by collaborating with Tomnay solely via email.

It was written, directed, edited and produced by Nicholas Tomnay, and shot in 23 days, following his feature The Perfect Host (2010),

Released: 2023-07-30

Genre: Thriller

Cast: Nick Stahl, Tamsin Topolski, Randy Vasquez, Penelope Mitchell, Juan Carlos Messier, Brian Groh

Duration: 102 min

Country: Colombia, United States of America Production: Evergreen Avenue.

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 12,917

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