- Director: Pedro C. Alonso
- Writers: Pedro C. Alonso, Alberto Marini
- Stars: Eddie Marsan, Paul Anderson, Ivana Baquero
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 37 Minutes
Synopsis
DBO Station manager Norman wants to cancel Jarvis Dolan’s news-talk radio show, The Grim Reality. Either that or take on his former partner, Andrew, which Jarvis is against, but really has no choice but to accept. Jarvis has a stalker who has been scaring the other employees and they’re all quitting. He was recently abducted, and it’s been nothing but trouble for the station since. Still, he’s going on with the show tonight.
Jarvis’s daughter Judith is dating Sam, a musician, and Jarvis doesn’t approve. Jarvis starts his show and talks about being kidnapped only three days ago. He wants to play a tape of his kidnappers, but the producer, Anthony, and assistant, Claire, seem to be missing. The tape won’t play.
On a commercial break, Jarvis finds that Anthony is being assaulted by someone in the booth. It must be his stalkers. He is told to carry on with the show and follow their instructions. They turn on the lights, and he can see the two men in rubber masks. Jarvis has no choice but to agree to carry on with the show. When he tries to call for help on the air, one of the masked men comes in and tries to cut Jarvis’s finger off, but the other man stops him.
An hour into the show, Andrew comes in as planned. He comes in acting up, and he seems to have no idea what’s really going on. The voice (in his headphones now) tells Jarvis to continue with the interview for another hour, and it’ll all be over. Andrew starts talking about how the two men met and became famous, and the intruders seem to approve of this. Jarvis is told to ask about the two girls at the party that went with Andrew in 2011. “What did you do with them? What happened in room 221?”
Andrew throws off his headphones and gets really upset. One of the men comes in and smashes Andrew’s hand with a sledge hammer. They want Andrew to admit that he raped those girls years ago, and they want him to admit it on live radio. Andrew tells the story about what happened, and it’s not going to do his future career any good.
Then the men want to know what he did to the boy and the other girl. Andrew admits he hit the girl’s boyfriend again and again, and then tied him to the radiator and put a sock in his mouth. Then the man kills Andrew with a sledgehammer– repeatedly.
Then Jarvis wakes up, and Andrew is clean and happy, the assistants are still there, and Jarvis doesn’t have a bit of blood on him. Then he really wakes up and the men are still there, along with Andrew’s body. Jarvis gets the gun away from the two men and forces them to remove their masks, but it turns out assistant Claire is in it with the two men. She’s the girl who was raped.
When the break ends, they start accepting listener call-ins. Alex calls in, and he says he was there that night at the party. He was the boy in the story, and Alex claims that Jarvis was there that night as well, and that he helped Andrew cover up the rape. The younger of the two attackers comes out of the back room, and he’s the caller using his cell phone. The older man explains that he’s the father of the second girl. He wants to know what Jarvis did; where is his daughter?
Jarvis refuses to cooperate, so the younger man breaks his finger. While the criminals argue, Jarvis locks himself in the booth next door and starts crawling through the walls to find a way out. The young guy crawls in after him while the old guy shoots at the walls.
They bring in Jarvis’ daughter as another hostage, but Jarvis still denies knowing anything about the rape. He interviews Claire, and some of her story doesn’t make any sense according to Jarvis. Claire and the father of the missing girl both come to the conclusion that Claire is simply crazy. They put Jarvis on the air one more time, and he explains everything that really happened that night.
Commentary
Somebody got way too tired about hearing about Brexit on the radio all the time, and then decided to make this film. I do find it hard to believe that a real radio show could have so many interruptions without some kind of manager coming in to check on them, especially since we know that the station manager was just upstairs a few minutes ago. Someone, somewhere, would be wondering about all that dead air and weirdness.
On the other hand, it’s very suspenseful. The tension builds throughout, and it’s never quite clear what’s going to happen next. Or who is telling the truth.