I guess any good performer is bound to go for the challenging task of carrying a movie alone by his or her sheer talent and presence. While Ryan Reynolds pushed his acting ability as much as possible while being the whole show of “Buried” (2010), Robert Redford demonstrated alone that he still could be very engaging just with his own presence in “All Is Lost” (2013), and Mélanie Laurent also went all the way alone by herself in recent Netflix film “Oxygen” (2021).

In case of “Inside”, which is currently available on Netflix in South Korea, Willem Dafoe, who is going to have the 70th birthday in this year, willingly throws himself into a similar challenge, but I do not think the movie provides enough materials for him to play during its 105-minute running time. Sure, he has been one of the most compelling character actors working in Hollywood, but even he cannot overcome the thin and tedious narrative of the film, and that is a shame to say the least.

At first, the movie, which is directed by Vasilis Katsoupis, looks promising as Dafoe’s criminal character breaks into the penthouse apartment of a big building located somewhere in the middle of New York City. This apartment belongs to some rich guy who happens to be an avid art collector, and it surely looks more like an exhibition site rather than a residence to live, as being decorated with many different artworks here and there.

What Dafoe’s character, whose name in the end credits is probably a winking nod to a certain Pixar animation film where Dafoe voiced one of the supporting characters, tries to steal the three valuable paintings of Egon Schiele. While he easily finds two of these paintings within a few minutes, the last one seems to be hidden somewhere beyond his reach, so he decides to give up on that before it is too late for him.

And then there soon comes another big problem. For some unknown reason, the security system of the apartment happens to have an error at the last minute, and he consequently gets trapped inside the apartment while also getting disconnected from an accomplice of his, who is supposed to handle any problem with the security system. No matter how much he tries again and again, it looks like there is no possible way out for him, and the situation becomes all the worse as the temperature control system of the apartment also goes haywire.

Now this looks like a classic setup for thriller, but the screenplay by Ben Hopkins, which is developed from the story idea by Katsoupis, only comes to meander instead without much narrative development. While the mood becomes a bit suspenseful as its criminal hero struggles to deal with the temperature problem inside the apartment, the movie mostly feels static and languid as failing to generate enough narrative momentum, and its sole main character’s desperate struggle becomes all the more monotonous for us as a result, though you may be amused a bit by several darkly amusing moments showing how he handles his biological needs. As the water line is somehow cut off, he soon needs to search for any possible way to get water, and he also must find and then secure anything to eat for himself.   

I think the movie is intended to be a sort of existential thriller rather than a conventional one, but it often falters in terms of characterization. Although we get to know a bit about its criminal hero at the beginning of the film, the movie does not flesh him out a lot on the whole, and we simply observe his plight from the distance without much care. Around the narrative point where he is thrown into more despair and madness, the movie seems to be going nowhere just like him, and it even attempts a couple of hallucinatory moments which do not work at all in my humble opinion.

While getting bored more and more along the story, my mind often went astray as reflecting more on what a versatile actor Dafoe really is. Since he made quite an impression on us via a number of striking performances during the 1980s, this legendary actor has steadily entertained us as appearing in a number of notable films such as “Shadow of the Vampire” (2000) and “The Florida Project” (2017), and he is still one of the most diligent performers in Hollywood as shown from his recent supporting turns in “Poor Things” (2023) and “Nosferatu” (2024).      

Although he does not have much to do here except looking despaired or frustrated throughout the whole film, Dafoe manages to find a way to fill his rather superficial character with some human details, and he succeeds in preventing the movie from becoming a total bore. Besides looking quite fit despite his old age, he is utterly committed on the screen at every second, and his solid efforts here in this film surely deserve to be served by a better one somewhere inside it.

In conclusion, “Inside” is not entirely a waste of time mainly thanks to its charismatic lead actor, but I remain quite dissatisfied without remembering much of anything else in the film besides his solo performance. It is certainly a good challenge for not only him but also the director and his crew members, but the overall result is not so interesting besides being quite inferior to those several movies mentioned at the beginning of my review. As a matter of fact, you will have a much productive time with any of them, so I sincerely recommend them instead.