Kimi (2022)

Soderbergh’s direction is, per usual, tight and efficient (as is his editing – it runs a lean, mean 89 minutes).

With a simple but effective script and some fun visual experiments, it's an entertaining conspiracy thriller set in (and very much about) the post-pandemic world.

What in lesser hands might have been just another tiresome COVID-19 quickie, locking us into a reality we’re all desperate to escape, becomes a tautly suspenseful nail-biter in Kimi, thanks to tirelessly eclectic director Steven Soderbergh and seasoned screenwriter David Koepp.

When this film is over, viewers with voice-activated smart TVs are liable to look around for the long-dormant physical remote.

The sheer banality of Angela’s cat-and-mouse game against the corporate assassins on her trail is chilling enough to compensate for the movie’s limited scope, and Soderbergh creates such a vivid sense of plein air claustrophobia — of being caught in a net as wide as a wifi signal — that he can stage an intense action set piece in a public/private space as small as the back seat of a van.