There've been a lot of minimalist thrillers lately that get rave reviews like Blue Ruin and Green Room (coincidental naming scheme?), that just leave me feeling cold. I can't fully get into them. And I think it's similar to horror movies and how once you see the monster, things just become less interesting. But in these movies it's sort of by design, rather than just an unfortunate shortcoming of the genre. Part of that raw no wasted scenes minimalism is that there's no character development or plot aside from the inherent situation the movie is showing. So once the initial tension and build up to violence explodes into mayhem thirty minutes in, there's nothing after that. The momentum has sort of been spent, and now there's just a wind-down of leftover violence until all the good guys or all the bad guys are dead. There isn't a second build up to anything.
I can't help but wonder what Green Room might have looked like if they stayed trapped in the green room trying to talk their way out for almost the whole movie, and then maybe all of the blood and guts comes in a flurry at the very end.
