One man’s treacherous time-travel tops the new DVD releases for the week of Jan. 26.
• “Synchronic”: Steve (Anthony Mackie) and Dennis (Jamie Dornan) have worked together as New Orleans EMTs for decades, and as such, their flaws and their wounds sit near the surface of their friendship. Frequently hungover Steve is in his 40s and still partying; Dennis resents this, as well as his role as husband to Tara (Katie Aselton) and dad to Brianna (Ally Ionannides), who’s leaving home soon. But things shift after a bizarre, disturbing call from dispatch, wherein Steve is stabbed and they find a long serrated weapon that doesn’t seem from this day and age jammed into the wall (“Time is a lie” is also scrawled on the other side of the room, a relatable message for the quarantine era).
It turns out there’s a new party drug going around, Synchronic, that’s leading to freak accidents, injuries, disappearances and deaths. And when the pair of EMTs respond to a call from a drugged-out teenager who doesn’t know where Brianna is, their hearts sink as they confirm that Dennis’ daughter is missing. Meanwhile, Steve is diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and finds the last remaining supply of the drug, discovering it makes the user travel through time. And for Steve, in search of Brianna, time-traveling through Louisiana’s prehistoric, colonial, Civil War and post-Civil War eras as a Black man is as much a threat as his deadly tumor.
It’s a high-concept movie, and directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead pull it off, mostly. Although, for a movie about timing, it seems a tad ironic that the script, by writer-director Benson, feels a tad oddly paced.
