Weapons

“Weapons” has a great hook. Set in a small Pennsylvania town where 17 kids from the same grade school classroom vanish one night without a trace, this mystery is recounted in voiceover by a young girl, initially over nothing but a black screen, imbuing the sensation of a campfire story. Did this really happen? It did, and writer/ director Zach Cregger recounts it through a nonlinear narrative, jumping between fragmented vignettes, each one sharing the title of a character’s name. This proves ironic given how little interest Cregger demonstrates in getting to know who these people are, reducing them to proverbial chess pieces, the performances only able to fill in so much. What’s worse, the most crucial character is the one kid from the class who did not disappear, Alex, played by 9-year-old Cary Christopher. Child performances tend to be sculpted as much by the director, and given Cregger’s lack of interest in character, Christensen is hung out to dry as Alex is rendered a zero. For a while, at least, the disjointed storytelling effectively underlines the confusion and fear gripping the town and provides scattered details intimating at the title’s underlying significance. Yet, as the puzzle of “Weapons” gradually locks into place, all those details are revealed as hollow tricks exposing the whole thing as mere clever artifice. The comedy/horror hybrid of the denouement might have made for something incredible if “Weapons” was ever intended to mean anything at all.