It’s getting increasingly difficult to escape the reality that AI is here to stay. Sure, fake ads and promos are one thing, but it is a real-life application as well, with its long-term ramifications to all things still a mystery. Still, this is ample material to build a fictional story around, and the team behind Den Mother Crimson does just that, giving us a multi-layered mystery and delivering a good film on a low-budget production.
Three field-specialized individuals are brought to a secret location to help fix an extremely powerful system run by AI. Leo Abrams (played by RoboCop and Aliens‘ Daniel Kash), Gwynn Faulkner (Enuka Okuma), and Jasper Holland (Saad Siddiqui) have all been paid well to be here, but once they realize what they are up against, they want nothing more than to leave. However, as the film progresses, we discover there is more to this AI and even more to these three individuals, creating a building tension as they race to stop a cataclysmic event.
At first glance, it’s a simple story and something that could easily have just turned into a throwaway film that simply went through the motions. However, director Siluck Saysanasy and writer Jason Joly understand the concept well and crafted something interesting here. The story of an AI going rogue and threatening the world is not new in the entertainment world, but with AI becoming more prominent over the last few years, it’s hard to differentiate one story from another.
Joly and Saysanasy understand that and weave a complex and personal story into the mix. The duo makes the stakes feel more personally grounded and puts the three individuals in both a personal and professional stew of decisions and reflections on the consequences of one’s actions.
Daniel Kash is excellent as usual, and commands the camera when he’s on screen. To that point, all three of these actors are in most of the scenes, and kudos to Okuma and Siddiqui, who, for the most part, hold their own against Kash. There are times he overpowers them with his presence and delivery, but they rebound nicely, making sure they stand firm and help create the atmosphere of dread that hangs over them all. With the film being shot almost entirely in one room, the initial sense and slow building of dread is so important, and it gestates nicely, giving the actors plenty of room to then play with the other plots and surprises that emerge over the course of the film.
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Being a low-budget film, it’s difficult to do anything resembling big special effects. There are a few, and although they tried, most felt added for no apparent reason, instead of bringing anything of real substance. That being said, the dialogue more than makes up for it, giving the audience some interesting ideas to chew on, with a couple of twists along the way, including a big one in the final act. Shout out to all the creatives who seem collectively on board, diving head first into the scenes and doing a solid job of creating a complex problem to be solved, in a room that is claustrophobic in its feel, becoming a character all on its own.
With so many AI stories finding their way into the entertainment world these days, this could easily have been a simple by-the-numbers piece that checked off all the boxes in a safe and convenient way. However, the talent behind the camera had other ideas, and with the actors on board, it became something more interesting. Yes, the smaller budget holds them back on occasion, but it also helps them tell a different kind of story, one that might have changed in feel and tone were there a lot more time and money to play with.
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Den Mother Crimson is not a perfect film and may not win any accolades, but it dared to try something different and use dialogue as a wonderful tool to express its ideas, questions, and weave a few different tales together into one. It’s something more films should try to do: put people at ease with taking risks instead of simply playing it safe.
Den Mother Crimson is available on Hollywood Suite or for rent on Amazon Prime Video.
