Movie Review: 'Encounter' is a Strong Showcase for Star Riz Ahmed

Encounter stars Riz Ahmed as Malik, a man who believes that bugs have been infected with an alien virus that the bugs are then transmitting to humans via bites. So convinced of this is Malik that, in the middle of the night, he storms into his ex-wife Piya’s (Janina Gavankar) home, assaults and restrains Piya and her new husband, Dylan (Misha Collins), and runs off with their kids, Jay (Lucian-River Chauhan) and Bobby (Aditya Geddada).

Malik believes that mom and stepdad are infected and thus it is necessary to incapacitate them while he escapes with the kids. Malik has a plan, he and the boys will drive through the night from Oregon to Nevada to an Air Force base where Malik believes that people are working on a cure for the virus. Jay is supportive because he loves his dad but, as the older brother, he’s also a little skeptical as the trip goes on and there is no real evidence of the virus that dad is so terrified of.

Co-writer and Director Steve Pearce makes use of filmmaking tools to create a meta-narrative in Encounter. When Malik is stopped by a State Trooper late at night on an empty stretch of highway, Malik suspects that the Trooper is infected. Special effects show us something in the Trooper’s eye that would indicate something is very wrong. However, we are fully in Malik’s perspective which may not be reliable.

From here, Encounter cleverly weaves a tale that keeps the audience reeling between whether Malik is crazy or if he’s the lone savior in a world full of infected people. Alien viruses in the real world are the stuff of ranting lunatics but in movies, aliens, viruses and the potential for dystopian apocalypse are very real possibilities. Slowly but surely one side of that narrative emerges as the truth but we are with Malik and our growing suspicion of his sanity, via Jay’s growing concern for his dad, drives the plot until we officially know which way the truth lies.

Encounter isn’t the first movie to use an unreliable character as the vehicle to tell a story but it is the first to do so with the remarkable Riz Ahmed in the unreliable character role. Ahmed is the key to Encounter, a movie that feels decidedly small and insignificant without his charismatic and involving presence. Ahmed invests Malik with charming and sympathetic qualities that, when combined with the tricks of the filmmaking trade, genuinely create doubt regarding whether alien bugs or declining mental health are behind this story.

Ahmed gets a terrific assist from fellow Academy Award nominee Octavia Spencer in an indispensable supporting role. Spencer plays Hattie, Malik’s parole officer. Hattie has a great deal of sympathy for Malik who she’s been working with for several years. Malik had been stable and working and improving for some time before one day simply vanishing and turning up at the center of what is believed to be a family kidnapping scenario with a potentially tragic ending.

Hattie is an urgent part of the last act of Encounter as she tries to keep things from getting out of hand between Malik and the law enforcement pros chasing after him. Rory Cochrane plays an FBI Agent named Shep and while he’s not some wild eyed man on a mission intent on killing Malik to rescue the kids, he is determined to use whatever means necessary and he is convinced that Malik is dangerous. Shep has every reason to believe that Malik has suffered a mental break and that makes Malik frighteningly unpredictable. The brief battles of will between Shep and Hattie crackle with some genuine intensity as she advocates for him not to be shot on sight.

Hattie simply doesn’t want to see Malik killed. She doesn’t believe he’s a real threat to anyone, though evidence to the contrary is slowly being unfolded. The plot of Encounter has a strong engine behind it, chugging from incident to incident doling out plot bread crumbs along the way that lead the audience one way or another on what is real and what is all in Malik’s head. It’s far from perfect but it’s a very solid popcorn thriller.

Encounter opens in theaters on December 3rd, 2021 and debuting on Amazon Prime on December 10th.