A sense of placelessness permeates David Verbeek’s numbing film Full Contact. This tale of a drone operator is in the vein of Andrew Niccol’s film Good Kill but removes the gloss and delves even further into the idea of whether or not a man can leave his job behind at the office, or if it instead stays with him throughout his life.

Gregoire Colin, perhaps best known from his roles in Claire Denis’s films, especially in Beau Travail, is a fascinating choice for the role of Ivan, especially considering that this is his first role in English.

The narrative can be a bit difficult to traverse, though Verbeek adds a cold and steely element to the film that suggests that there may not actually be a way to get into the mind of Ivan, that he himself has become a drone.

Certainly, the film dips and dives into some pretty heavy subjects and topics, and while it may work better as a fractured narrative than a polemic, the impact is felt. Colin delivers yet another chilly performance as Ivan, and Verbeek remains composed and artfully aligned with a tale that could have easily felt too artfully arranged.

Full Contact presents a series of striking images, and though the story may not fully cohere in a traditional sense, the mood certainly makes up for this fact.

[star v=4]