A checkered cab glides slowly over a long stretch of dark desert road, but it's going to be one bumpy ride for this harried hack before the night's over in the riveting new supernatural mystery thriller THE FARE (2019).
Make that about a hundred bumpy rides, because for Harry, the same night seems to be happening over and over again although he doesn't know it at first. He only has brief flashes of deja vu in which things seem familiar--the talk radio chatter, an exchange with a gruff dispatcher, a jarring bump in the road...
...and the lovely passenger Penny (producer and scripter Brinna Kelly, THE MIDNIGHT MAN), who gets into Harry's cab in the middle of nowhere and strikes up a friendly conversation with him until suddenly, without warning, she disappears into thin air.
This keeps happening with only minor differences each time, as Harry slowly realizes he's caught up in some kind of temporal loop and Penny, who seems to already be aware of this, encourages him to join her in that knowledge so that they can work out their shared existential crisis together and find a way out of the trap they seem to be stuck in.
That's all of the plot that I'm going to give away regarding THE FARE (not to be confused with the similarly-titled cab thriller FARE, which we covered HERE), because much of my enjoyment of this wonderfully intriguing tale was due to the fact that I knew nothing about it going in.
I will say, though, that this is one strange story, full of surprises and revelatory moments upon which we hang with keen anticipation.
Gino Anthony Pesi (LOVELESS IN LOS ANGELES, 42) is instantly likable as the strong, easygoing Harry, a guy who chuckles along with the silly radio chatter about time-traveling aliens until gradually he begins to think he may have just come into contact with some.
Brinna Kelly, whose screenplay is just brimming with creativity and snappy dialogue, is effortlessly appealing as the mysterious Penny.
Much of the film resembles one of those single-setting, two-character plays, yet director D.C. Hamilton (THE MIDNIGHT MAN) keeps finding ways of making this cinematic and visually pleasing. The dark desert setting is deeply eerie and atmospheric, with some great drone-camera shots of the cab making its way down that endless desert road.
Inside the cab, things grow warmly intimate between Harry and Penny (the film switches from black-and-white to color to reflect their moods) whose dialogue is sparked by humor and even some nerdy comic book talk (Penny loves Jack Kirby).
Then things get strange and scary when Harry suddenly finds himself alone in what resembles a scene out of "The Fog" or a Romero zombie flick. One thing's for sure--I didn't see the final revelation coming at all.
The Blu-ray from Epic Pictures is in 2.35:1 widescreen with English subtitles. Bonus features consist of an engaging commentary by Brinna Kelly, gag reel, alternate, deleted, and extended scenes, and the making-of featurettes "Secrets of The Fare" and "The Look of The Fare."
I was reminded a lot of "The X-Files" while watching this scintillating, absorbing tale of romance, the supernatural, and other creepy things. But most of all, THE FARE is true-blue "Twilight Zone" stuff.
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