Time Out

There have now been so many superhero movies, starring so many different people, that any random new movie you come across could be a "superhero team-up" movie. Released last year on Netflix, The Devil All the Time stars Tom Holland (Spider-man), Robert Pattinson (the next Batman), and Sebastian Stan (the Winter Soldier). It also features debatably adjacent heroes like Jason Clarke (one of many John Connors), Mia Wasikowska (Alice ?), and Bill Skarsgård (um... Pennywise the Clown ?).

This movie, as you might suspect, isn't actually like any of that stuff. Based on a book by Donald Ray Pollock, The Devil All the Time is a period piece framed on one end by World War II and the other by the Vietnam War. Two generations, split across rural West Virginia and Ohio towns, are haunted by the past and pulled under by evil entering their lives. I could be less flowery and describe the movie's plot more literally, but the thematic content feels like the main point here. This tale is here to declare a thesis statement.

While I think everyone could arrive at the "rough coordinates" of that thesis, I think the exact nature of it will be in the eye of the beholder -- in particular, in what view they take of religion. Depending on your attitude, this could be a story about anything from "religion makes people do terrible things" to "terrible people use religion as a cloak" to "you can find terrible people everywhere, including within religion." In any view, this is a religion/corruption sandwich; I'm just not sure which part is the bread.

Even though there is room for interpretation here, the theme is not subtle. This is a disturbing, horrific movie that goes way beyond what it needs to in making its points. Violence of all levels pervades the movie from beginning to end, no character comes out clean, and it is generally an uncomfortable, unpleasant watch. (The biggest manifestation of its lack of subtlety, though, isn't violence, but the voice of a constant narrator, who turns out to be the original book's author himself. A bit on the nose.) How much of this movie is oogy and gross? It's right there in the title.

Presuming you're not excited to watch a violent movie, the only reason to watch is if you want to see some of these actors do some capital-A Acting. Everyone in the movie is solid; Tom Holland and Robert Pattinson are particular stand-outs. Yet you can also imagine that both will have (or have already had) even better work at some point in their careers.

I'd say The Devil All the Time deserves a C+. It will soon be forgotten in the vast morass of Netflix, if it hasn't been already.