🎥 Reel Review: Off the Grid

Off the Grid has a strong hook: a reclusive inventor goes into hiding when his tech is targeted for weaponization. Josh Duhamel plays it surprisingly restrained—haunted, capable, and increasingly cornered. The premise sets the stage for a tense cat-and-mouse story in the wilderness, where brains outpace bullets. At its best, the film delivers clever traps and grounded tension with a lo-fi edge.

But while the setup has juice, the follow-through is inconsistent. The antagonists—representatives of a faceless corporation—are shallow and generic. María Elisa Camargo has a spark but barely gets room to breathe. Dialogue is serviceable but never crackles. You can feel the film reaching for relevance—about privacy, power, and the cost of invention—but it mostly sticks to formula.

There’s craft here. There’s effort. But it plays things too straight to stand out in a crowded genre.

Mitten’s Verdict: A modest thriller with a promising setup, but it doesn’t quite deliver on the tension or stakes it teases. Rated: 5.6 out of 10.