One day in the near future, Safety Not Guaranteed is going to be remade bigger and stronger with people like Natalie Portman and Tom Cruise and it will be either really good or just plain awful. The premise is so fantastic; one only wishes the payoff could be better.
Newspaper ad:
[box]WANTED: Someone to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. You’ll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. I have only done this once before. SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED[/box]
Is that not a marvelous premise? You can go anywhere with that – write anything you want, it’s interesting and open, and yet confining enough to limit a storyline. This is a writer’s dream. Here’s where writer Derek Connolly and director Colin Trevorrow went: local newspaper sends a collection of flakes to do some investigative journalism ASAP before the whole newsprint medium folds. I don’t believe this was the best route to go. In the very least, a comical montage of rejected applicants would probably have been the way to start. Giving the audience the perspective of a newsman approaching the advocate gives us the skeptical perspective, yes, but also means that we never let the ad writer get close to us because we’re constantly questioning sanity and motivation.
Kenneth (Mark Duplass, better known for his dircting) is indeed an advocate; he’s not bad here. This is a role which called for a man who sells crazy, like Mel Gibson, Michael Keaton or, dare I say, Nicolas Cage. But this is a small budget Indie film; it’s not like Cage is too broke not to take anything. Anyhoo, when piece writer Jeff (Jake M. Johnson) fails at undercover, intern Darius (Aubrey Plaza) takes over and this essentially becomes her film. It’s a good role and one I’d love to see her try at it again. Aubrey Plaza is attractive and likeable, both in a-typical ways. When you see her observe, the next thing you expect to hear is a biting indictment of whatever she’s been watching. Here, however, she wears an expression of 
quixotic bemusement throughout 75% of the film. I don’t know what emotion, exactly, she’s trying to convey, just that it’s clear she’s trying to convey one.
The plan, by the way, is to time travel back to 2001. The reasons stated are personal, although this has to be the invention of somebody who ran out of film-makin’ money. A bigger plot probably would have required real cash. Because, let’s face it, a plot involving time travel to 2001 without mention of 9/11 is not just unrealistic; it’s irresponsible. I mean, if you could potentially stop 9/11, wouldn’t you? I could make a solid argument that Pearl Harbor was a necessary evil, but even if you were on the side that managed to leverage the destruction of the World Trade Center into a goldmine of political opportunism, you’d still trade it for the tragedy never happening.
Selling an independent film must be among the difficult things in life to do. Hence, most Indies you see in a theater have a hook, a thing that sets the film apart. In Safety Not Guaranteed, the hook is entirely the premise; there isn’t a character, scene, gesture, moment or single line of dialogue that you’re gonna remember beyond leaving the theater. But it’s a Hell of a premise.
Time travel exists!/or maybe it don’t
This guy ain’t sayin’/he can’t or he won’t?
The girl’s our dupe/does she hold sway?
Without Michael J./you’d best stay away
Rated R, 86 Minutes
D: Colin Trevorrow
W: Derek Connolly
Genre: Quirky
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Fanatics
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: People who need a solid plot to go with a solid premise
