Jordan Peele's NOPE

I recently got around to watching Jordan Peele's latest, Nope. It was a very interesting film, a quasi science fiction thriller. Just like his other offerings, you'll be in for a unique experience.

The film starts in 1998, during the taping of a sitcom about a chimpanzee, who lives with a family. For some initially undisclosed reason, the chimp goes mad and attacks and kills almost everyone on set, including audience members. The movie then cuts to the present. Otis Haywood Sr. (Keith David, who's been in a ton of films, including Carpenter's They Live and The Thing) and his son Otis "OJ" Jr (Daniel Kaluuya) live on a ranch and train and handle horses for film production. OJ hears a strange noise in the sky, and the clouds suddenly rain down a bunch of debris. One of the items hits and kills Otis Sr. Six months later, OJ is still dealing with his grief, when his sister Em (Keke Palmer) comes to visit. Due to struggling to make ends meets, OJ has been forced to sell the family horses to the local owner of a Western Theme park named Ricky "Jupe" Park (Steven Yeun). Jupe was a child actor on the show where the chimpanzee went berzerk, and was one of the few survivors from that tragedy. One night OJ goes out on his horse and sees something strange flying in the sky. From there on, he and his sister become determined to solve the mystery of what he saw, and they eventually get the help of a local Fry's Electronic salesperson named Angel (Brandon Perea), to set up cameras and get footage of the alleged UFO that they think is hanging around the area.

The film does a great job of showing how the effects of trauma manifest differently for different people. OJ becomes quiet, reserved and depressed following his father's death, while his sister Em is optimistic and determined to make the best of life, despite having her own painful memories. Jupe has dealt with the trauma of the sitcom tragedy by embracing it, eagerly recounting to others the details of that infamous event, while also taking center stage while running his theme park, exploiting and monetizing his tragedy. Other themes present throughout the film relate to having proper respect for nature (specifically animals), and the erasure of black contributions to the history of filmmaking. All these ideas and themes come together full circle in the end. Each of the actors give outstanding performances, especially Keke Palmer, who's lively and  hilarious, and Michael Wincott as a famous and pretentious cinematographer named Antlers Holst, whom OJ and Em seek in an effort to get him to shoot footage of the alleged UFO. Peele does a fantastic job introducing us to this world and it's characters, and succeeds wonderfully with building tension, regarding the increased appearances of the UFO, as well as the chimpanzee attack, which is horrifying and tense. In a way, the film reminded me a lot of Spielberg's Jaws, where the movie slowly takes its time to reveal the shark, allowing the tension to build and build to a spectacular climax. The sound design is also fantastic. This is definitely a movie that is best enjoyed in a movie theatre with a good sound system.

Jordan' Peele's Nope is yet another great movie from the filmmaker. Unlike M. Night Shyamalan, who is basically a one-trick pony, Peele layers his films with great writing and scripts, unpredictable stories, fantastic actors, intriguing metaphors and themes, and a handful of well done scares. With this latest feature, he successfully manages to give it an exciting, summer blockbuster vibe, unlike the big budget, CGI-heavy borefests that the major studios are tossing out more and more, filled with lame one-liners, and thoughtless scripts and stories. Nope is a cinematic breath of fresh air.