Riz Ahmed has bugs on the brain in the disappointing genre mishmash Encounter
Encounter is a gripping sci-fi horror movie… until it decides to be something else

In the opening minutes of Encounter, a mosquito-like creature pierces its proboscis through a protective layer of human skin, going deep into flesh and blood. The little bug the attacker deposits inside its victim scuttles along vessels, burrows through connective tissue, and then explodes, jettisoning particles of itself outward to spread throughout the human body. The creepy-crawly tension of that early sequence teases the effective body horror filmmaker Michael Pearce weaves throughout Encounter. But the image also serves as a handy metaphor for the film’s failings: the way it infects an intriguing thriller of trauma and paranoia with invasive, consuming melodrama.
Co-written by Pearce and Joe Barton (who’s attached to an upcoming Cloverfield sequel), Encounter begins with that unsettlingly timely depiction of disease transfer. This is the greatest fear and motivator of former soldier Malik Khan (Ahmed). He sees bugs everywhere—flying out of motel-room walls, materializing inside people’s eyes—and his training from 10 tours served as part of the Marine Raider Regiment informs his response to this enemy that he can’t convince anyone has invaded Earth.
Malik moves at night. He keeps his head down. And he tries to save the people he loves: his sons, 10-year-old Jay (Lucian-River Chauhan) and 8-year-old Bobby (Aditya Geddada), who live with their mother, Piya (Janina Gavankar), Malik’s estranged wife. Is he protecting his children by coaxing them out of their beds in the middle of the night, ushering them into his car, and then driving away with them from Oregon to Nevada? Or is that just kidnapping? Encounter plays coy for a while with the distinction between paternal protectiveness and crime, aided by unsettling imagery.
Casting a man of South Asian heritage as a former star Marine is, on its lonesome, a pointed choice, given the kind of actors usually enlisted to portray American military heroes. Ahmed’s customary blend of braggadocio and vulnerability works to his favor here, whether he’s pithily dismissing one character’s racist suspicions about his allegiance or insisting to his sons that he’s their “cool-ass dad.” He has good chemistry with Chauhan and Geddada, and his physical grace comes in handy during the film’s demanding action scenes, as he throws his body into a scrappy fistfight or moves lithely through a massive shootout. Encounter relies on Ahmed’s pirouetting between mania and despair, loneliness and love, to secure our confidence in Malik’s certainty… while leaving just enough room for doubt.