INHERITANCE
(director/writer: Neil Burger; screenwriter: Olen Steinhauer; cinematographer: Jackson Hunt; editor: Nick Carew; music: Paul Leonard-Morgan; cast: Phoebe Dynevor (Maya), Rhys Ifans (Sam), Ciara Baxendale (Emily), Kersti Bryan (Jess), Daniel Joey Albright (U.S. Customs Officer), Byron Clohessy (Doug), Mitchell Hochman (Bartender), Salim Siddiqui (Tazi Driver), Majd Eid (Khalil Jamal); Runtime: 101; MPAA Rating: R; producers: Bill Block, Neil Burger, Charles Miller; IFC Films/Miramax; 2025)
“The gimmicky film was shot guerilla style entirely on an IPhone.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Neil Burger (“Voyagers”/”The Marsh King’s Daughter”) directs and co-writes with spy author Olen Steinhauer this low-budget thriller. It’s a two character production about a young woman Maya (Phoebe Dynevor), living in Manhattan, who eventually uncovers that her estranged, divorced father Sam (Rhys Ifans) is an untrustworthy spy and not just the real estate broker he claims to be.
The gimmicky film was shot guerilla style entirely on an IPhone.
The depressed Maya’s mom has just died. She looked after her for the past year. Her dad surprisingly shows up at the funeral after missing for years, which surprises her older sibling Jess (Kersti Bryant). Dad offers a high-paying job to Maya to lure crooked foreign buyers into making expensive real estate investments with him to launder their money. She accepts, and is in Cairo with dad. While dining at a restaurant, dad leaves her alone. But later calls to tell her to leave immediately, as the police arrive and are looking for him because he’s wanted by Interpol.
While Maya is looked after by his trusted confidante Khalil (Majd Ejd), she learns dad has been abducted and his life threatened. To save his life, she must retrieve stolen state secrets. After slipping away from Khalil, she flies to New Delhi. From there she takes a train to Mumbai. And then flies to Seoul. All this time she’s followed by various shady figures from either the underworld or by corrupt agents.
Using a shaky hand-held camera, at these foreign locales, we see how she clings to her cellphone as she’s chased while on foot, or in a taxi, or on a motorbike. It’s minor Jason Bourne spy stuff, but it’s lively.
It turns out dad is a bad egg, willing to lie to his naive daughter and place her in harm’s way so he can get out of his own troubling situation. And when confronted by her, the cad can only offer insincere apologies.
Inheritance conveys an uneasiness throughout, but offers little that makes you care about Ifans as a bad parent, or about Dynevor as his innocent daughter who is used as a pawn.
REVIEWED ON 2/1/2025 GRADE: C+
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