[Movie] The Gorge (2025) - They're Not Keeping You Out. They're Keeping Them In.

I remember scrolling online and coming across this movie poster that a friend of mine posted some time back. It looked interesting, or rather appealing. It's not like a good poster guarantees a good movie, but I was going to watch it anyway. If anything helped, it was because he did applaud the movie in his caption.

Released in 2025, directed by Scott Derrickson and written by Zach Dean, the action/sci-fi film, The Gorge stars Miles Teller as Levi Kane, Anya Taylor-Joy as Drasa, and Sigourney Weaver as Bartholomew. The movie follows two snipers recruited on a mission to guard a deep gorge and contain the danger inside it, even though they had no knowledge of what was lying within or what it was they were guarding against.

Levi, a former U.S. Marine Scout/Sniper was contacted and recruited by a mysterious woman called Bartholomew. There were two towers on opposite sides of the Gorge. Levi was set to guard the west tower. And there was Drasa, a Lithuanian covert operative whose services had been employed by the Kremlin. She guarded the east tower. While all they knew in this mission was that they should guard the gorge, they were also forbidden to contact the other tower.

It was like that until they did interact with each other and somehow became familiar with themselves. As a result, it led them to an unintended or unintentional discovery about the gorge and what was deep down there, what they stood guard against. They discovered the secrets of the gorge beyond the brief job description they were given. This act itself endangered them. Not just by what was lying deep in the gorge, but by those who recruited them.

From that moment, it wasn't just about guarding the gorge. It was about survival for them, now that they knew the truth about the place and well, broke the rules by doing that. It was good seeing them have each other's backs to a great level, for people who got acquainted not more than a year ago. It was them also being discreet and vigilant as they don't know what their recruiters would do. You can be sure that Bartholomew didn't take it kindly.

The movie seemed to have drawn mixed critics. For the most part, it was applauded. The storyline with the gorge was interesting. It wasn't something you'd usually see and I like the writers going this route and giving something kind of unique. And how they did that with the focus almost all the time on the two major actors and the gorge was interesting. I'm realising how they pulled the movie together with few a actors and yet made something good enough.

You don't usually see that with action movies, but that was laudable. There's also the cinematography to commend. The dark lighting exposure, especially in the gorge area came out well and I'll say that it did give the portrayal of what a place with such a dark secret should be like. Also, carrying their conversations and interactions from one tower to another was good camera work. The focus, zooming and movements were good.

Where the movie was probably faulty was focusing basically everything on the gorge with little from Bartholomew and her team who were supposedly monitoring the place and their actions from their end. I understand the movie is all about the gorge but doing so would have revealed more about the recruiters' unlimited will to guard their secret. Though there were periodic reports from Levi to his end. Also, Drasa’s recruiters were completely unknown.

Overall, it was a good display of action, and relationships. Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy carried the movie with their good acting. Respectively, portraying Levi as the stoic, cynical man, weighed down by nightmares caused by PTSD, with no personal attachments or what to live for, and Drasa as burdened by her own heavy past, with a sense of isolation and expendability, both actors did well in their performances. The Gorge was a good watch.

Image Credits.

Thank you for reading!