‘Synchronic’ Review: Anthony Mackie Gives His All In Sci-Fi Mixed Bag

Science Fiction, Horror/Thrillers, and Crime Dramas: those are my bread and butter, the genres of film that I love to watch and talk about. When I got the assignment to review Synchronic (2019) on Netflix, I was pretty excited – and I was able to keep that excitement and intrigue up for about an hour, after which it became clear that the film didn’t know where it wanted to go at all. The excitement began to dissipate from there.

I want to start with all the things that I like about Synchronic, because there’s plenty to enjoy about this film beyond the problems I have with the script (which we’ll get to).

It’s a really interesting premise. Written and co-directed by Justin Benson (The Endless, Spring) Synchronic follows Steve (Anthony Mackie) and Dennis (Jamie Dornan), friends and paramedics in the NOLA-area as they respond to multiple disturbances revolving around Synchronic – a new synthetic drug causing unexplainable deaths and injuries to those who take it. I’m not talking about a regular OD here – I’m talking immolated bodies with no fire sources and venomous bites from exotic snakes. Weird stuff.

This opening sequence of events is probably my favorite part of the film, for a multitude of reasons: it immediately establishes a threat to the community, the camera work of cinematographer and co-director Aaron Moorhead (V/H/S: Viral) excellently mimics the disorientation and visual nausea of being intoxicated, and the reoccurring synth theme produced by Jimmy LaValle (of The Album Leaf) is delightfully unsettling. Starting off very strong.

Tensions further escalate when both men suffer individually devastating news – Steven is diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor and Dennis, after reporting to the scene of another Synchronic trip, finds that his daughter Brianna is missing without a trace having taken the drug. With seemingly nothing to lose and only a few packets of the supposed “time travel” drug left to buy, Steven takes the remaining Synchronic to find Brianna and bring her home.

I think the set up of this first act, described above, is mostly concise and well done. I also find the relationship between Steven and Dennis well-acted and believable – Anthony Mackie’s work especially, and his convincing and complex emotional portrayal throughout the film. I would love to say the same for Jamie Dornan’s character, and it’s through no fault of his own that I can’t – Dennis just isn’t given much screen time or character beyond “griping husband.”

You would think that Dennis, Brianna’s father, who’s characterized as the more family-oriented between him and Steven, would play a larger role in the unraveling of how Synchronic works in an effort to understand what’s happened to his daughter, but the opposite happens. Other than a few scenes depicting his rapidly-deteriorating marriage in the wake of Brianna’s disappearance, Dennis doesn’t return to the A Plot of this story until the very end when Steven is about to take his last Synchronic pill. I understand his character arc goes from “married father yearning for the single life” to realizing how important his wife and children are to him, but that heel turn happened as soon as Brianna was missing 30 minutes in. Why it was dragged out in the background while Steven did all the work alone for the next hour and a half, I have no idea.

I think a good way to sum up the problems I have with this script are that it just feels a little underdeveloped with where it wants to go, both emotionally and with the themes it seems to attempt addressing. Like I began to state above, the emotional core of this film, beyond Mackie’s performance, was just weak for me. I also feel hat there were certain interesting ideas teased throughout the film that just weren’t tangible enough to actually be a through-line, like addressing the romanticization of time travel and how it’s recontextualized when the traveler is black.

We see this theme explored not only through Steven’s own words (there’s a specific moment where he comments on how ridiculously optimistic Back to The Future is) but through the eras of time that Synchronic takes him to. From Spanish conquistadors to Klan members to Confederate soldiers Steven is dually a fish-out-of-water – in both his time period and his race. Unfortunately, Synchronic doesn’t go so far as to take these ideas and craft an overarching theme for both the film and Mackie’s character, making it feel more as an afterthought than anything else.

If you’re a genre buff, there’s enough really good tone-setting work in here to leave you with a positive experience. If you’re not particularly big on sci-fi, however, I’m worried that the story and characters won’t give you enough to hold onto for a nearly two hour movie. I similarly enjoyed Benson and Moorhead’s previous Netflix film The Endless, and am excited for their future projects, even with this film being less than perfect.