Drew Hammond

Peppered with stellar performances and a suspenseful first act, US has the makings of a mystery on its hands, as it seeks to dig at the insecurities of an upper middle class black family in modern America. How it does this is at first admirable, showing hits of the loneliness and competition that plague the suburbanite lifestyle, and later, the danger. The catch is that US's on take on heavy handed metaphors for class warfare and the lowerclass was probably better left on in the dark, as once the film physically and metaphorically comes out of the shadows and into the light of the third act, what tension had been built up by the exceptional if flawed first act is gone, and by the end of the film, with its Shamalan esq twist that it seems to be far too proud of, most of the goodwill it had built up is gone too. Visually tame aside from one or two good moments of gore surrounded by upsettingly off-screen kills, US feels restrained in everyway a conceptual arthouse film should be. Why this one has glowing reviews and a several million dollar budget paired with a wide release screening is beyond me.