Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Wrath of God’ on Netflix, a By-the-Numbers Psychological Thriller From Argentina

Netflix cranks out movies like The Wrath of God vicious aplomb. There’s probably a sometimes-grisly, hastily written, generic thriller like this for every language in the streamer’s international market, rendered quickly consumable so it can rocket into the top-10-movies tier for a day or three and then fade into the ever-deepening tar pit of an on-screen menu, where it can half-life its way to disintegration. This one is Argentinian, based on a Guillermo Martinez novel and, as you’re about to find out, barely bothers to differentiate itself from countless other movies.

THE WRATH OF GOD: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: It begins with rapturous applause for Kloster (Diego Peretti), a rich and famous crime novelist who just read part of his new book for an adoring crowd. They all want a photo or an autograph save for Esteban Rey (Juan Minujin), who gestures up towards a balcony. Luciana (Macarena Achaga) is up there. She looks desperate, like she hasn’t slept in weeks. If she doesn’t get to see Kloster, she’ll cause a scene. He goes up there. Cut to Rey, and offscreen, something makes a sickening thump. Now, before we get any further, it seems important to let you know that this is one of those narrative-bookend type deals, where the movie segues to another scene with highly dramatic music and a subtitle that reads something like 12 YEARS EARLIER. And from there, the movie works back to the scene from the opening. You know how this goes – why open with a boring thing and work up to the exciting thing when you can cut the exciting thing in half and put one chunk up front and one chunk at the end?

So: 12 YEARS EARLIER. This is when Luciana was Kloster’s assistant, taking dictation for one of his novels. He paces the room and orates while she types. Do people write like this? I thought it had more to do with the writer’s miserable sweat seeping into the keyboard. Anyway, Luciana loves Kloster’s little daughter, and they play dolls together, and Kloster’s wife seems a little off, possibly because a fateful injury destroyed her ballet career. Cut to: PRESENT DAY, but this is a lie! A damn hell ass lie! Because if this is the present day, then the opening scene with the book reading and icky thump would be a scene from (cue eerie theremin music) THE FUTURE. In truth, we still have to work up to the thump scene, from this scene, in which Rey sits at his desk at the newspaper, which is clearly a day or 10 before the actual PRESENT DAY.

But! We don’t stay in the (NOT REALLY THE) PRESENT DAY very long before it jumps back to 12 YEARS EARLIER, when Luciana also worked as Rey’s assistant, for he too, at the time, dictated his novels instead of committing intensely solitary self-torture over a laptop. Then back forward to the days before PRESENT DAY, when Luciana asks Rey, now a haggard journalist with permanent booze-related halitosis, for help because she’s absolutely certain Kloster has been murdering her family one by one over the course of the last (you guessed it) 12 YEARS.

So back again to 12 YEARS EARLIER (note: these subtitles don’t show up every time; I’m thankful I took notes), when Kloster misinterprets an innocent gesture from Luciana and plants a fat kiss on her mouth. She walks out, files a sexual harrassment suit, sits down for a mediation with lawyers and such, and Kloster just walks in looking like a few miles of bad road, cuts her a check and walks out. Huh. This is when Luciana learns that Kloster’s wife and daughter are dead, and how that happened, I can’t spoil. Time passes, but not so much time that we catch up to PRESENT DAY, maybe more like a month or three or a year, and Luciana and her family – mom, dad, two older brothers, one younger sister – are on vacay at the beach and her brother the lifeguard drowns and who’s standing there but Kloster. The plot thicks!

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Not Aguirre or Khan — not in the slightest, thank you. Pick a generic revenge or serial killer movie, any generic revenge or serial killer movie. Preferably one that first aired on basic cable. I had to look up movies that I forgot existed in order to remember they existed: Mr. Brooks maybe, or Cold Creek Manor, junk like that.

Performance Worth Watching: Peretti and Minujin appear to be having a contest to see who can give off the most broodingly intense Gabriel Byrne vibes. Tough call, but I’d go with Peretti.

Memorable Dialogue: Kloster gets gaslight-y: “For years, I tried to imagine why she’d make up these stories against me… One of three reasons – madness, cruelty or guilt.”

Sex and Skin: Not much – a creepy leering POV shot of Kloster looking down Luciana’s shirt.

Our Take: The Wrath of God is one heckuva page-boiler I tell you, a real pot-turner. It’s the movie equivalent of a thriller novel you’d pick up in the airport, read in two hours, leave in the seat pocket and wholly forget before the flight attendant says bye-bye. But one gets the feeling the movie wishes it was more than just that, what with its frequent references to biblical eye-for-an-eye blither, and that title, which might make sense if you stretch the elastic waistband of a literary interpretation pair of undies until it breaks and leaves a red mark on your ass. The movie characterizes Kloster as a literary genius who frequently bloviates in insufferably pretentious tones about the grandiose themes of his work, but what he dictates to Luciana sounds like boilerplate bleak murder-misery dreck – an unwitting metaphor for the movie itself, perhaps.

The film asks us to stay on board to see if Luciana’s accusation is true or if she is, indeed, barking mad. Is Kloster behind the horrific depopulation of her family? Or is this scenario just a crazy 40-car pileup of coincidences? We’re tempted to believe the chaste daughter of a pastor more than the leering and sinister old creep haunted by his own family’s death. Why else would he constantly muck about in questionable Old Testament morality muck? But it’s hard to feel invested in this overbaked dynamic when the characters are wafer-thin, the tone suffocates us with self-seriousness, the timeline is hacked up for barbecue (my KINGDOM for a LINEAR narrative!) and the conclusion isn’t surprising or provocative or particularly satisfying, even on a superficial level. This is color-by-numbers stuff passing itself off as a Rembrandt. OK, maybe just minor Rembrandt. But the notion is still laughable.

Our Call: Wrath of God? More like Breath of Dog! SKIP IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.