Against Hope

May 25, 2020
A brawl in a neo-Nazi bar kicks off this punchy but jumbled retribution tale by Santos (Bad Girls). Hope is devastated when Billy, the son of the neo-Nazi Herzfeld family, murders her boyfriend, Jai, for winning a school race (“come to my hometown and humiliate its champion?”). Billy’s family almost kills her, too, when disposing the body. After spending her teen years grieving, Hope perfects some fighting moves, pockets her “fuck Nazis” flask, and sets out to destroy Billy’s burgeoning career as a public official—and to take down every other Nazi that stands against her. The gory script is packed with righteous anger, though it’s sometimes delivered via predictable lines (“Sometimes you can see the face of evil so clearly that you have to fight it with everything you’ve got”). The plot can get confusing, jumping rapidly through points in Hope’s life. But Santos’s sharp, stylish art gifts verve to all the stabs and jabs. (And who doesn’t enjoy a story about Nazis getting what they deserve?) Despite the script’s plot holes, Santos offers an enjoyably vengeful heroine in Hope.