On the whole, “The Rental” is the victim of a low-rent script.
“THE RENTAL”
Rated R. At 250 drive-ins and theaters and digital and cable VOD.
Grade: C+
If you can imagine a mumblecore film combined with a slasher movie (Mumble-slasher? Slasher-core?), you would have “The Rental.” Directed by the actor Dave Franco and co-written by him — together with mumblecore founding member Joe Swanberg (“Hannah Takes the Stairs”) — “The Rental” begins with two couples — Charlie (Dan Stevens) and Michelle (Alison Brie, Franco’s wife) and Josh (Jeremy Allen White) and Mina (Sheila Vand of the sublime “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night”) — who agree to rent a posh house on a cliff overlooking a rocky coastline for a weekend vacation (Remember those?). Charlie and Josh are brothers, and in over-expository dialogue we learn that Josh beat somebody “half to death outside his frat house” and did “hard time” for it. Charlie and Mina are partners in some sort of start-up that just got its “seed funding.” Mina, who is of Middle Eastern descent, tried to rent the house, but was turned down for what she believes were racist reasons.
