Alarum Movie Review: Stale Action Retread

Alarum takes too many spy action movie tropes and messily blends them together, culminating in a mixed bag attempt at repurposing a winning formula.

Agents going off the grid and being forced back into the fray? Check. Agencies seeking to tie up loose ends and clean the slate in the name of occupational security? That’s three for three.

Scott Eastwood (Fast X) and Willa Fitzgerald (Strange Darling) star as Joe and Lara, a couple of rogue agents, recently married, who are attempting to enjoy their “retirement” by honeymooning off the grid. However, they soon find that escaping their past is easier said than done when various intelligence agencies converge on the winter resort they’re staying at, searching for a “flight pill” among the wreckage of a downed plane, with the two of them suddenly caught in the crossfire. The duo must face off against enemies both old and new, including agency fixer Chester (Sylvester Stallone, Rocky), hired to remove the former agents from the playing field amid concerns they have joined “Alarum”, a rumoured elite team of rogue spies.

It’s wasteful to see Alarum unify such acting talent on-screen only for it to about-face and plunder the depths of the action-thriller, mining from the most perceptible of genre clichés. The movie immediately presents itself as a clunky amalgamation of everything we’ve all seen before, infusing less-than-dynamic action with subpar visual effects. Blood splatters are instantly recognisable as computer-generated imagery, and an early case of violent defenestration showcases CG-enhanced stunt work, with the falling, flailing bodies appearing akin to uncanny valley video game sprites. That isn’t to say that Alarum neglects authentic stunt performances, but such an early example of visual shortcuts being taken hints at the filmmaking calibre to come.

Perhaps a larger issue is how unfocused the movie often feels, and how it doesn’t allow us to indulge in the ‘married couple against the world’ narrative angle we’re initially teased with. Rather than allowing Joe and Lara to combat the several deadly forces on their doorstep together, Alarum instead isolates one from the other, asking us to question the loyalty of each spy instead of forging their bond on-screen for all to see.

Before the action begins to take hold, the film provides limited development for either character or their shared relationship, so the act of splitting them up feels unsatisfying. We care little and know even less about who they are, both individually and to each other, so how are we expected to become invested when bullets start flying and the bodies pile up?

None of the performances from the core cast, which includes Mike Colter as a ruthless mercenary with a questionable accent, are unsatisfactory, though each is undercut by writing that doesn’t give them anywhere to go. It’s particularly egregious that Fitzgerald is wasted at a time when her stock couldn’t be higher, coming off the back of her role in Mike Flanagan’s The Fall of the House of Usher and her breakout movie role in JT Mollner’s Strange Darling.

Alarum attempts to skate by on the charisma of its performers, but they aren’t able to elevate a concept that feels tired from the get-go, and one that’s never able to transcend its genre trappings by exploring the moral complexities of spycraft. Instead, we’re treated to a convoluted hotchpotch of action-thriller motifs and the most predictable of narrative outcomes, right down to a conclusion that stops rather than ends. Such abruptness rubber-stamps the movie as little more than an inadequate and tired retread, that only serves to remind us of the many better movies we could be watching instead.

Alarum will be released in US theatres, on digital and on demand on January 17, 2025.

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