★★½ (2½ out of 4)
What the hell. Whoever thought of casting James Van Der Beek, immortalized as a teen dream for six seasons on “Dawson’s Creek” (1998 to 2003), as a pastor turned psycho killer in a thriller called “The Gates.” Having known this merry prankster for years, I can see his wicked hand all over it. Jim died last month at 48 from colorectal cancer, so he won’t be around to see his final film released this week. But I’m sure he’s laughing about it somewhere. No one enjoyed screwing with his image more. A decade after Dawson’s, he spoofed himself like crazy on the ABC sitcom “Don’t Trust the B----in Apartment 23.”
Don’t get me wrong. Jim was an actor to his fingertips. So if he decided he wanted to fry your nerves to a frazzle in a movie like “The Gates,” he could do it. Right at the start, preacher man Jacob is caught in the act of murder, bashing in the head of a woman who dared to cross him. The witnesses are Keith Powers as Tyon, Algee Smith as Kevin and Mason Gooding as Derek. They saw it all. And the pastor sees them seeing him.
The suspense plot is obvious to the point of parody, but James Van Der Beek as a psycho preacher man will fry your nerves to a frazzle.
Here’s the twist. Tyon, Kevin and Derek are Black. The pastor is white from a wealthy gated community in Texas where his word is law. And writer-director John Burr (“Muse”) clearly believes he can utilize this situation to create a new suspense classic that also uncovers the toxic roots of racism in America. Bring on the Oscars.
Not bloody likely. Burr is at least competent with the setup as the Black dudes, stuck in traffic on their way to a party, duck behind the gates for a quick shortcut that will soon have them merrily on their way. I’m sure you don’t have to ask, “How’s that going?”
It doesn’t take long for these strangers to understand that the pastor, with the help of a local officer (Kylr Coffman), intends to hunt down these intruders and blame them, as persons of color, for the murder. A few members of the community appear to see the light, but not enough to defy the pastor’s interpretation of events. Van Der Beek comes on as the picture of unruffled cool. And the soothing tones he uses to express menace in a whisper are chilling.
What a shame that the plot is obvious to the point of parody. With generic acting to match, except from Van Der Beek and Gooding, solid in the new “Scream” franchise and better than that in “Heart Eyes” and “I Want Your Sex.” The son of “Jerry Maguire” Oscar winner Cuba Gooding, Jr., Mason is on a promising career trajectory that even “The Gates” can’t slam shut.
But as a director, Burr lets the energy flag so badly and so often that it makes the scant 98-minute running time feel like eternity. If you want to see a “one night in hell” palm sweater done right, check out 2017’s “Good Time” from the Safdie brothers before they broke up to go their separate ways. “The Gates” drops the ball in maintaining even a semblance of tightly coiled tension.
As you can tell by now, I’m writing about “The Gates” to pay tribute to Van Der Beek in his cinema swan song, investing a stock character with human dimensions. He’s done it before in films from “Varsity Blues” to “The Rules of Attraction” and in TV work from “How I Met Your Mother” to “Pose.” And in life, as his family and friends can attest, he layered his devotion to craft with a mischief that laughed off anything that smacked of ego. RIP, Jim. You did us proud.