Naked Singularity (2021)

John Boyega plays a public defender who gets caught up in the theft of a lot of heroin from a SUV in an impound lot.

It's more complicated than that, of course. Casi is getting exhausted fighting an uphill battle against the U.S. legal system. Boyega's good at that part. He mixes this very glib, quick and confident manner of speech with a weariness in his step, a slump in his shoulders that makes you think he's glib because it's all he had time for. He didn't have a chance to properly prepare with the client who doesn't speak English and got arrested for selling batteries on the subway because he has 80 other clients who also need a public defender. All he can do is talk fast and try to keep them out of jail, but the system's rigged. Poverty is an illness, as one of his fellow public defender Dane (played obnoxiously by Bill Skarsgard), and Casi's infected. Which is how you wind up with the two of them try to swipe the money that will pay for all that heroin.

That part is fine, as far as it goes. Casi knows about the deal because a former client (Olivia Cooke) of his who now works at the impound lot got roped into the mess, then got busted by the cops and is trying to play both (all?) sides. Casi and Dane are equal parts brilliant and completely unprepared. Casi took fencing in school, but the only sword he owns is a katana, which you don't use the same way. Dane somehow procured one of those giant tear gas guns with the barrel clips, but is yelling about Colin Powell ("clear objective, decisive firepower, exit strategy!")

But there's this whole other thread about the other guy who lives in the building with Casi, a physicist named Angus who is certain the universe is collapsing from too much mass and it's causing "ripples". Ripples that Casi notices the effects of - a temperature display that reads 150 degrees, his entire body momentarily floating - but everyone else seems unaware of. There seems to be something about either taking the chance because everything could be gone tomorrow. Or the universe collapsing is a metaphor for how unbalanced the justice system has become, and the only way to correct it is with something big. Like stealing a crapload of drug money. Because money talks.

Ultimately, it's an interesting idea, but the pieces don't all hold together.