Come With Me – Movie Review (4/5)

COME WITH ME is a thriller mystery starring Theo Rossi. It has a plot that feels far too familiar for comfort. Everything about this storyline is so realistic that it’s difficult not to take it in. And I’m sure that’s exactly the point, and also why it works so incredibly well. Read our full Come with Me movie review here!

COME WITH ME is a genre hybrid spanning crime, drama, mystery, and thriller. Towards the very end, however, it feels like a dystopian horror movie. Not unlike real life sometimes, when yet another strange thing appears on the news. Real life has been scarier than anything fictional for quite some time, but this movie manages to be so realistic it’s scarier.

Probably because it deals with real-world problems. I highly recommend watching this thriller, but I also have to warn you that it hits hard and is close to home. It’s an extremely important movie that deals with real problems, and it doesn’t offer an answer to all our problems. Instead, it tries to offer a way to possibly understand each other better.

Continue reading our Come with Me movie review below.

The divisive powers of American media

Come with Me has a title that ultimately refers to how people in media try to get other people hooked by using an “us against them”-rhetoric. It’s not just that you have a preference for one news outlet over another. No, you have to choose sides, and once you have, the other side is full of idiots who know nothing.

As much as divisiveness is a global problem, it’s one that has grown with extreme speed in the USA over the past few decades.

In Come with Me, Simon Ward (Theo Rossi) finds himself struggling with everything from his relationship to his working-class job. He has friends and a girlfriend who loves him, but he is not ready to commit. Mostly, it would appear, because he is terrified of what this world is coming to.

Very soon, he finds himself heavily influenced by the rhetoric-spewing radio host Dalton Kirby (Ron Perlman). On the surface, Dalton Kirby is just stating facts, but underneath it all is one key message: You’re f**ked, and there isn’t much you can do about it. Are you going to take it or fight back to change things and get a better life?

Give up or fight back?

Things in Simon’s life are not looking up as the storyline of this movie evolves. Except sometimes good things do happen to him, but he is already too far gone to see them. He witnesses friends in his life opting for the “easy” way out by giving up and leaving this world behind.

Next, Simon gets the idea that his right to bear arms may help him feel safer and get towards a better place in life. It doesn’t really, but the combination of physical weapons and weaponized speech is a very dangerous one. You can’t always predict which direction it will take someone in. With Come with Me, the direction turns out to be both surprising and a little familiar.

Theo Rossi stars in this movie, which is the third movie we’ve reviewed starring him in recent months. All three movies have been amazing, and while the first one (The Saviors) was perhaps the one most like a horror movie in its plot, this third one is ultimately scarier. Also starring in this movie (mostly with his iconic voice) is Ron Perlman, who is amazing opposite a fiercely intense and bare-boned Theo Rossi.

Watch Come with Me when you get the chance

Aaron Harvey is the director of Come with Me, which he also co-wrote with Jonathan Croom. It’s a scary watch, an important watch, and one where Theo Rossi shows us all that he can get under the skin of any character as well as the audience. Also giving stellar performances are Ron Perlman, Kate French, Jay Huguley, Michael Sirow (The Wrath of Becky), and Ronnie Gene Blevins (The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It).

Come with Me is the opposite of a feel-good movie. Or rather, it’s not that this is a “feel-bad” movie, which I suppose is the opposite. And it certainly isn’t meant to make you feel indifferent either. If anything, what I take from this movie is that we are losing so many people to cult-like media personalities, who insist on telling their acolytes that what they see and hear isn’t real. Only what they’re told by them is the actual truth.

In a world where things are so messed up, and people are without any kind of safety, many are looking for explanations and a way out. If someone points at a group of people and tells you, “It’s them. They’re the reason your life sucks”, then this message just might resonate with you if it catches you at the right time. And with a media landscape that never sleeps, it can catch most everyone at the “right” time.

That is what Come with Me puts a spotlight on. Not judging those who “fall for” the media charlatans, who can’t even manage to practice what they preach, but rather that the world is ripe for these media personalities. We need to be there for each other, or we will lose even more people to these cult-like media personalities.

Come with Me is out in select theaters on September 4, 2026.

Details

Director: Aaron Harvey
Writers: Aaron Harvey, Jonathan Croom
Cast: Theo Rossi, Ron Perlman, Ronnie Gene Blevins, Kate French, Michael Sirow