Encounter (2021) review

Former Marine Malik (Riz Ahmed) - who served multiple tours overseas - collects his two children Jay (Lucian-River Chauhan) and Bobby (Aditya Geddada) because he's convinced "non-terrestrial microorganisms" have arrived on Earth and are infecting people and he wants to take them to safety - later on, his parole officer Hattie (Octavia Spencer) gets involved.  It's somewhat intriguing when Ahmed's character is convinced little worm-like creatures are slithering around his skin (the effects are nice too), but once it reveals that he's severely mentally ill the movie loses a lot of its energy, and it becomes a case of a sick man with two kids who needs help ... and then there's the ending which is wildly overdramatized (is there anything the Federal Bureau of Incompetence can't bumble?).  Pearce, who co-wrote it with Joe Barton, seems to want to say something about the way America "handles" the problems of those who bravely volunteered to protect and defend it and have suffered emotionally because of it but doesn't get very far, instead turning it into an acting clinic for Ahmed, who - in a short period of time - has become one of the best actors in the world.