ReelBob: ‘Silent Panic” ★

By Bob Bloom

The premise of “Silent Panic” is unrealistic, and its presentation scuttles it ever more so.

Three young friends return from a camping trip to find a dead woman in the trunk their car.

Eagle, the owner of the car, does not want to report the body to the police because he served time in jail for burglary and assault — a crime for which he claims he was framed.

The three pals spend the first reel of the movie debating what to do: Bobby (Joseph Martinez) and Dom (Jay Habre) want to call the cops, but Eagle (Sean Nateghi) wears them down, claiming they will be arrested.

The rest of this meandering 96-minute feature is spent trying to keep the incident buried, so to speak.

From the outset, the premise is flimsy. The trio won’t just take the body out of the trunk and abandon it because they are afraid their DNA will be found, and they will be implicated.

So, for the next few days, Eagle keeps the corpse in his trunk.

As you can guess, everything begins to quickly unravel. The excuses Eagle makes to his girlfriend to keep her from driving the car are lame.

He leaves the car on the street with the keys in it, hoping someone will steal it. He later abandons it, claiming it was stolen, but it is quickly found.

Between them, this trio of stooges cannot do the right thing.

And that is the movie’s biggest drawback. You find these men repulsive and cowardly. You actually hope they get their comeuppance for not doing the right thing.

The movie has many distractions and unnecessary other characters that seem to drag it out until it overstays its welcome.

The performances are one-note and bland; Nateghi’s Eagle is constantly desperate and on edge; Martinez’s Bobby, a former addict, returns to cocaine to ease his guilty; and Habre Dom simply shuts down, mopes and struggles with his conscience.

I guess writer-director Kyle Schadt is trying to say something about people’s responsibility to others, but his point is buried under all the complications he piles into his screenplay.

The deeper you go into the film, the more ominous it gets. Of course, nothing good can come of any of this.

The price of silence turns out to be too high for the men, but you really can’t emotionally connect or feel any empathy for them.

Schadt should have worked more on the script for “Silent Panic.” The movie, including the inane dialogue, plays like a first draft.

“Silent Panic” could have used more sophistication and dimension, especially to its characters.

Like the body in Eagle’s trunk, “Silent Panic” is dead on arrival.

I am a founding member of the Indiana Film Journalists Association. My reviews appear at ReelBob (reelbob.com) and Rottentomatoes (www.rottentomatoes.com). I also review Blu-rays and DVDs. I can be reached by email at bobbloomjc@gmail.com or on Twitter @ReelBobBloom. Links to my reviews can be found on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

SILENT PANIC
1 star out of 4
Not rated, language, drug use