‘The Fix’ VOD Review
Stars: Grace Van Dien, Robyn Rossouw, Tafara Nyatsanza, Keenan Arrison, Daniel Sharman, Ryan Kruger, Clancy Brown | Written and Directed by Kelsey Egan
The Fix is the latest film from South African writer/director Kelsey Egan and in keeping with the themes of her previous features, Glasshouse and I Carry You Always, it’s set in a future where pollution has rendered the Earth toxic. Unlike those two films though, it’s not to the point where people need to stay indoors, you can go out with the aid of a filtered mask or, if you can afford it, a drug known as Air Remedy, Airem for short, manufactured by pharmaceutical giant Aethera.
As a matter of fact, The Fix opens with model Ella McPhee (Grace Van Dien; V for Vengeance, The Binge) shooting a commercial for Airem. Despite having landed the lucrative assignment of being their spokesmodel, she’s not a happy person. She lost her mother to suicide a year ago today. And it only gets worse when she catches the two people she thought she could trust, her best friend Gina (Robyn Rossouw; Spoorloos, Tickets) and her boyfriend Tully (Tafara Nyatsanza; Beast, Hyperlink) together.
Enraged, she tosses back the entire vial of a new drug Tully swiped from his dealer earlier that day. Almost instantly, she gains superhuman strength, but that’s just a small sample of what’s to come.
As it turns out, what she took wasn’t just some random designer drug. Solomon (Keenan Arrison; The Umbrella Men, Snake) was working on a potential competitor for Airem which he wants to make available to everyone, something Eric O’Connors (Daniel Sharman; Fear the Walking Dead, Every Man For Himself) the CEO of Aethera will kill to prevent. On the run and framed for murder, Ella finds herself caught between the two sides.
The Fix is part dystopian science fiction and part superhero origin story, and like many superhero stories there’s an underlying message about corporate influence and scientific ethics attached to it. That isn’t pushed too hard though, the good guys and bad guys as well as their motives are obvious without beating the viewer over the head with it.
Instead, the film focuses on action as Ella tries to figure out her new powers and use them to stay alive and out of the clutches of the bad guys. Those powers are an odd assortment, with her strength being joined by Spider-Man like climbing abilities, being able to spit some kind of venom like a cobra and a couple of others that I’ll leave for you to discover. By the end it’s a bit much to accept even for a film like this, and when her final form is revealed it’s rather silly looking.
Thankfully, there are plenty of fights to keep the viewer from giving it much thought. Ella has to deal with everything from a SWAT Team to Aethera’s security. She even gets to kick ass on a would be rapist played by Ryan Kruger, director of Fried Barry and the Street Trash sequel. The film’s other recognizable name, Clancy Brown (The Mortuary Collection, Starship Troopers) has a couple of scenes as Eric’s father.
While I don’t want to give too much away, The Fix’s ending isn’t just left open, it ends with multiple unresolved plot threads that are obviously there to set up a sequel. Unfortunately, it also means the film feels anticlimactic, and the final scenes are not the place to disappoint an audience.
Overall, The Fix is an enjoyable bit of futuristic fun conceived with the obvious intent of starting a franchise. While I don’t think Kelsey Egan has created a world that’s interesting enough to support a Hunger Games-length trail of sequels, it certainly has potential for at least one more film to wrap things up. If you want some lightweight entertainment that you can watch with the kids, this should do the trick.
*** 3/5
Gravitas Ventures has released The Fix on Digital platforms.
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