By: Dominic La-Viola
John Burr’s The Gates is a thriller in name only—a film that gestures toward urgency and provocation but never quite locates the tension required to sustain either. What begins as a socially conscious premise gradually reveals itself to be something far less cohesive: a film caught between tones, unable to reconcile the difference between what it wants to say and how it chooses to say it.
Burr, who both writes and directs, constructs a script that leans heavily into heightened, almost caricatured characterization. The dialogue is frequently tongue-in-cheek, the characters broad to the point of abstraction, and the narrative shaped by an exaggerated sense of moral contrast. Yet the direction strives for a grounded, straight-faced seriousness, creating a tonal dissonance that the film never resolves. The result is a work that feels divided against itself—its performances, staging, and visual language operating in opposition to the material they are meant to support.
At its core, The Gates attempts to interrogate not racism, but classism—suggesting that perception is shaped less by race than by visible markers of status. This idea is most clearly articulated through recurring moments in which the protagonist is judged not for who he is, but for how he appears. A simple change in clothing—from a hoodie to a white button-up—transforms him, in the eyes of others, from a perceived threat into a respectable figure. It’s a pointed observation, one that gestures toward the performative nature of social acceptance.
But where the film falters is in its execution. Rather than allowing these ideas to emerge organically, Burr renders them in blunt, almost didactic strokes. The film insists on its themes instead of exploring them, reducing what could have been a nuanced critique into something overly schematic. Even the antagonist—a preacher revered within a gated community—functions less as a character than as a symbol, his role defined more by what he represents than who he is.
Visually, the film is far more assured. Ray Huang’s cinematography lends The Gates a polished, controlled aesthetic, with crisp compositions that often elevate the material beyond its narrative limitations. Yet this visual precision only deepens the disconnect. The film looks composed and deliberate, while the script remains structurally uneven, creating an imbalance that ultimately flattens its impact.
The score, composed by Jongnic Bontemps, initially suggests a sense of atmosphere, but quickly becomes repetitive and emotionally mismatched. Rather than enhancing the tension or reinforcing the film’s thematic undercurrents, it often feels disconnected—an afterthought rather than an integrated component of the storytelling.
Performances across the board are committed, if constrained. James Van Der Beek and Mason Gooding approach their roles with a seriousness that the script itself does not always earn, and in doing so inadvertently expose its limitations. Their grounded performances highlight, rather than conceal, the film’s uneven tonal foundation.
In the end, The Gates is a film with a clear intention but an uncertain execution. Its central idea—of class as a determining force in perception and power—is compelling, but it is delivered without the subtlety or cohesion necessary to give it weight. What remains is a film that looks complete on the surface, yet feels unresolved beneath it.