Detour

(2013) ***

Jackson is having a bad day.  He awakens in his stalled car with the airbag deployed.  Looking out the window he assumes that it is nighttime because it is pitch-black.  With growing horror he realizes that he is not looking at nighttime but rather dirt.  Flashbacks reveal that while on his way to work he was buried in a mudslide at an unknown depth.  Confident that rescue will be eminent he kicks back and relaxes.  However he soon realizes that rescue is not coming and if he is to survive he will have to use every available resource.  The air becomes thin and he becomes awfully thirsty.  Just how long will his car battery last before he is plunged into total darkness?

Detour is the latest in a growing body of predicament stories.  I love a good predicament but I realize that this is a polarizing genre.  Detour mirrors 27 Days and the like in an almost paint-by-numbers manner.  Like its predecessors we follow our protagonist as he takes stock of the random objects he has on his possession which will later be utilized with MacGyver-like intuition.  Water and food sources must be established before a plan for escape can be derived.  Like similar stories we learn more about our protagonist via flashbacks and from the pictures and videos he has on his phone (have you ever noticed that every person in a predicament has touching family footage in their phone?  Me?  Nah, I have footage from the last KISS concert I attended).  Jackson’s flashbacks suggest that he has been too work-driven and neglectful of his relationship.  As he makes his way through the Kübler-Ross stages of grief he realizes that he must make changes in his life if he survives his ordeal.  If you enjoy a good predicament than Detour is a fairly gripping, albeit derivative, take on the genre.  For all others, skip it.