The Passenger
Director: Carter Smith
Year Released: 2023
Rating: 0.5
Fast food employee Benson (Kyle Gallner) "defends" meek coworker Bradley (Johnny Berchtold) from bullying by killing the store manager and two others with a shotgun, then sets out to "improve him" by forcing him to talk to his old girlfriend Lisa (Lupe Leon) and then to visit Ms. Beard (Liza Weil), the teacher Bradley accidentally injured when he was in elementary school. This woefully underwritten feature (which should have been a short film ... if that) wastes a tremendous amount of time without saying much of anything and is poor at character development, with too many questions left unaddressed (like what's happening with Benson's mother or why he had a grudge against the vice principal). Instead, it just relies on Gallner going totally overboard and pretending he's a self-help guru as opposed to a burned-out psychopath.