Naked Singularity movie review 2021

MOVIE TITLE: Naked Singularity

This award-winning film premieres in theaters on August 6, 2021 and on Video on Demand on August 13.

RATING: R

LENGTH: 93 minutes

IN A NUTSHELL:

Thanks to Screen Media for sending me a press screener so I could preview the movie. It won the Audience Award at the 2021 San Francisco Film Festival on opening night.

Based on the PEN prize-winning novel A Naked Singularity by Sergio De La Pava, a former Manhattan District Attorney with first-hand knowledge of the everyday travesties of justice in city courtrooms, this genre-bending film is both an ambitious, razor-sharp indictment of legal dysfunction and an entertaining, high-stakes heist.

Naked Singularity tells the story of Casi (John Boyega), a promising young NYC public defender whose idealism is beginning to crack under the daily injustices of the very justice system he’s trying to make right. Doubting all he has worked for and seeing signs of the universe collapsing all around him, he is pulled into a dangerous high-stakes drug heist by an unpredictable former client (Olivia Cooke) to beat the broken system at its own game.

THINGS I LIKED:

The movie features John Boyega, Olivia Cooke, Bill Skarsgard, Ed Skrein, Linda Lavin, and Tim Blake Nelson. They all give outstanding performances. Great cast.
I’ve always enjoyed the “day-in-the-life” type of movies. This one features an attorney who actually wants to help people and make a positive difference.
I’m always fascinated to learn which executive producers have backed the film because they believe so much in it. In this case, it’s award-winning Ridley Scott and Dick Wolf.
To provide greater insight on the movie’s title, look at these definitions of “singularity”: the state, fact, quality, or condition of being singular BUT ALSO “a point at which a function takes an infinite value, especially in space-time when matter is infinitely dense.”
There are some humorous moments and characters.

THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE:

The movie talks about the public defendant department as a machine. The movie says that the justice system is criminal. Do you believe that? Comment below!
Some scenes are so dark that they’ll be hard to see on small devices.
You don’t even get into the details of the actual heist until almost an hour into the movie.
It’s slow-moving as we wait for something interesting to happen.
The script is messy.
Some viewers will find the plot and characters confusing.
The movie trailer makes it look like it’s going to be a lot more fun and entertaining than it is.
The idea of John Boyega with a sword seems appealing, yet is disappointing. His sword is featured on the movie poster, yet we really only see him with it for a minute.
The movie thinks it’s way cooler than it is.
The title is intriguing but the movie doesn’t give it unique insight.