‘The Gates’ Movie Review: Not-Bad Thriller Allows James Van Der Beek To Go Bad
Photo from Lionsgate
From Jeremy Kibler
Thrillers that take on race relations can be provocative or obvious, or sometimes both. The Gates is both, and it’s arguably a horror movie, albeit one that exists more in the “it could happen” realm. It’s playing less in the Get Out sandbox and more reminiscent of Judgment Night, that decent 1993 wrong-turn thriller co-starring the father of Mason Gooding (who stars here). As generally predictable as this narrative of systemic racism goes, director John Burr’s real-world social thriller is solidly tense and compact with the highlight being James Van Der Beek’s last on-screen performance.
Mason Gooding valiantly leads the way as Derek, a bougie LSAT-prepping law student who has a good head on his shoulders and always does the right thing. He makes the mistake of taking a break from studying to go party with longtime friend Tyon (Keith Powers), a football star benched from a knee injury, and Kevin (Algee Smith), a hotheaded car salesman who likes to pick a fight with Derek. Once the guys avoid gridlocked traffic and take a shortcut—big mistake!—they end up inside a gated residential community and witness a white woman’s murder. Of course, the white perpetrator locks eyes with them, and he is megachurch pastor Jacob (James Van Der Beek), the man who has built this predominantly white Texan community from the ground up. Who’s going to believe three young Black men?
Director Burr creates a sense of portent from the onset and keeps the prejudice-focused tension steady. Burr’s script efficiently establishes the dynamic between these three young men, as well as the world they’re living in when it comes to being a person of color. Of the young actors, the always-charismatic Mason Gooding is the film’s rock, smart and sympathetic, while Keith Powers and Algee Smith each have a watchable, more live-wire presence.
A dumb genre stand-by gets multiplied by having one character lose their phone when running, another leaving their phone in the car, and another having their phone die on them. A mid-film detour where two of the protagonists find possible solace at a house party takes a turn that’s a little unexpected involving a recording studio, but it also comes out of a different movie, tonally. Even Roxy (Sofia Hublitz), a fellow outsider who finds herself invited by a rich white guy to the party under false pretenses, doesn’t really figure into the proceedings in a satisfying way, so why introduce her at all?
This also notably marks the final work of James Van Der Beek. In a rare villainous role as an alleged man of God who is anything but, Van Der Beek clearly relishes mixing up his clean-cut boy-next-door image, as he did in The Rules of Attraction and ABC’s underrated sitcom Don’t Trust the B----in Apartment 23. It’s a little tragic to see the late actor playing someone you truly despise, but Van Der Beek effectively infuses menace and danger into his wolf-in-sheep-clothing Pastor Jacob. Some of the other actors are hemmed in to play the pastor’s blind followers, although Brad Leland packs a little more nuance as an alcoholic old man.
The Gates is a pretty standard thriller, but it still manages to hold one in its simple, yet scarily still-relevant, grip.
Rating: 3/5
The Gates is currently in select theaters.
