Basic Psych opens strong, dropping the viewers into a harrowing scene as a psychologist is home alone on Halloween night, handing out candy to trick or treating children. Suddenly there's a masked man with a gun in the house with him, and he knows his life is in danger. Part way through the encounter he realises he knows his assailant, before being shot and killed. From here we jump forward several days where we meet another psychologist, Stuart Price (Michael Cerveris), as he meets a new client, Dan (David Conrad). Dan is evasive and demanding, making Stuart shred his notes there and then and getting him to promise not to tell anyone of their appointments. He seems to be hiding something, and his intensity is unnerving.
Despite the unusualness of his first appointment with Dan, Stuart meets him a second time, where Dan reveals a frightening piece of information to him. He is responsible for a killing of two people that took place in a park several weeks before. With Stuart bound by his medical ethics not to reveal this information, and with a desire to help Dan lest he fall prey to the man himself, Stuart enters a dangerous game with his new patient; one that could threaten everything Stuart cares about.
As soon as I saw the trailer for Basic Psych I knew I really liked the concept. The idea of a doctor being duty bound not to reveal that a patient is a killer, and being forced into a situation where if they don't find the perfect way to help their patient they too might end up dead is a wonderfully dark concept. I also appreciate that Basic Psych doesn't try to dance around this idea, there's not really any point where the concept is hidden from the audience, and even Stuart realises what's happening pretty quickly into the story. The film is really good about not wasting time, and every moment used adds to the story and the characters.
The film also allows the viewer to come to their own decision on who the hero of this story is. Both Stuart and Dan think that they're the heroes of this tale, and whilst we spend the most time with Stuart the film could have easily been told from Dan's perspective. Both of them have a daughter that they care for and want to protect. They both feel a sense of danger from the other. They're both trying to come out on top without winding up losing their lives. The film presents things fairly evenly, and it's the viewers own perspective that will pain one as the hero and one as the villain; and subsequent watches of the film will absolutely shift how you first saw it.
Speaking of that, there aren't many films that I want to watch again almost immediately, but Basic Psych had me wanting to start the film over from the beginning as soon as the credits rolled. Some of this is down to some trickery from the creators keeping some important pieces of information back from us until the final moments, but there's a lot of stuff that I realised I wasn't questioning before, that I was just going along with and that if I were to see those scenes again I'd be able to clearly see the other meaning that was there the whole time.
Both Michael Cerveris and David Conrad to an excellent job throughout. Much like the story having more meaning than you first think the performances from the two leads take on very different interpretations once you've seen the film the once, and you realise they were giving two performances rather than just one, walking this fine line where they had to make themselves look like both the protagonist and antagonist. The supporting cast is pretty light, but do a decent job at helping to flesh out the world and add more to our leads. Siena Goines does a great job as Stuart's artist wife Sisi, who has some much stronger and more realistic reactions to Stuart's patient admitting to murder, such as fearing for her life before opting to help a killer. Compared to the two leads she gives a much more honest performance, one that becomes more tragic once you watch through the film again.
I wasn't sure what to expect from Basic Psych before going into it. The trailer looked interesting, but I've found that lower budget films in the psychological thriller genre can sometimes fall a little flat due to a weaker script and lead actors unable to really deliver fully. Basic Psych doesn't fall into these traps, and whilst it's not a big studio picture it never stops trying to deliver that kind of experience. It pushes it's leads to deliver great performances, and has a script that uses it's runtime so well that by the end I was surprised that almost two hours had already gone by and wanted more.
If you're looking for a smaller, more intimate movie that doesn't rely on spectacle to entertain you and instead puts its actors in the spotlight Basic Psych will definitely deliver. A film that not only delivers on its promises, but reminds viewers that smaller movies are not to be overlooked.
Basic Psych is available now on Apple TV, Prime Video, and Fandango.
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