Hot Spot (2026)

Tell Them When to Stop - Hot Spot review by griggs

Somebody seems to have given Hot Spot's production designer an unlimited budget, then forgotten to hire anyone to tell them when to stop.

It's a peculiar vision of the future, where a private eye in ridiculous clothes investigates a murder and Noomi Rapace may or may not be a cyber witch. I rather liked the production design, which makes even the daftest ideas look interesting, though I rarely worked out what anyone was supposed to be doing. Surprised that my dad's car from the late 80s turns up. It's been converted to a self-driving electric, yet somehow kept its exhaust pipe.

Unfortunately, looking interesting only gets you so far. The story is a muddle, the characters barely register, and the film is too busy showing off its inventions to do anything with them. I spent much of the running time waiting for the various threads to come together. When they finally did, I wasn't convinced Agnieszka Smoczynska knew what she'd made.

(Un)surprisingly, the cinema was only half full when the house lights came up, and closer to a quarter by the time the Q&A started. Plenty of people had voted with their feet.

I can't fault its willingness to be strange, but I wanted something worth caring about beneath all the dressing up.

A triumph of imagination over storytelling. Sadly, I'd have preferred both.