Bonkers but brilliant – Zero

ZERO
Directed by Jean Luc Herbulot
Certificate: 15
☆☆☆☆

FOR $300, the woman on the bus tells the American tourist: “I didn’t ask questions.”

And questions are what the viewer has throughout this extraordinary thriller about two strangers who wake up in Dakar, Senegal, with bombs strapped to their chests and a mysterious baddie (Willem Dafoe, perfectly cast) as the disembodied voice offering them clues to complete five missions.

Finish the missions before the clock on your chest ticks down and you live. Fail and it’s kaboom.

In a beautifully crazy opening scene, Number One (Hus Miller) wakes up on a bus in Dakar: we have been given a clever little filmic insight into what he is dreaming – an early open introduction to the type of film-making we are about to be sucked into.

And from that disorienting opening moment, it’s impossible to look away.

We meet Number Two (Cam McHarg) as he wakes up at the wheel of a car: he also has no idea where he is, nor why he has been turned into a suicide bomber.

These Americans abroad have 10 hours to solve this mystery and save their lives, and as we quickly discover, their First World privilege isn’t going to help them out.

The tasks are wonderfully crafted: they have to seek out certain people and in doing so set the authorities on their path.

And the tension is occasionally lessened by situational laughs along the way.

One scene has them tasked with interacting with a cocaine dealer, who forces them to try his products.

Herbulot takes the viewer into the head of a cocaine-fuelled American with a bomb strapped to his chest, quite the ask of a film-maker and one he aces by using a pounding soundtrack.

As well as a wonderful premise, Congolese writer-director Herbulot uses funky camera tricks to whoosh you through scenes.

He captures the beauty of this capital city – the colours of everything from the costumes to the neon-lit shops swirl in a hallucinogenic mess, Senegalese reggae and pop blares out, and everything contributes to accentuate the senses and overload you to give you some idea of what the two main protagonists are trying to deal with.

With Dafoe barking orders in their ears and the sweat of a tropical city adding to the claustrophobic and disorienting atmosphere, this is a thriller that pushes you to the edge of your seat and keeps you there.

Extraordinary and with future cult classic written all over it, this is one hell of a summer release: original, exciting and completely bonkers.