Welcome back to Movie Recap. Today I'm gonna show you a 2016 dystopian thriller film called,
The Bad Batch. Spoiler's ahead. Sit back, relax and enjoy the video.
The movie begins as a woman, named Arlen, is getting readied to be exiled into the desert.
Arlen is assigned the code Bad Batch Inmate 5040,
the same code is branded to the side of her head. Out in the desert,
she is left alone with barely any rations to survive in the harsh conditions outdoors.
All Arlen has to contend with are the clothes on her back, a single backpack and a gallon of water.
At first, Arlen appears fairly calm and collected. She takes her time before starting to wander out
into the desert by herself. All that Arlen has as a reference or direction for the desert is
a lone piece of paper telling her to find The Dream and find Comfort due east. She folds up
her flier and continues trudging along on her way through the intense heat of the desert sun.
Luckily, she finds refuge in an abandoned car in the middle of the parched land.
Thankful for at least some shade from the harsh outside, she sits inside the car
and finally takes a moment to reminisce about her past.
Her reverie is cut short when out of nowhere, a golf cart comes barreling towards her.
Suddenly fearing for her safety, Arlen attempts to run away.
The women aboard the golf cart pursue her, and almost instantly capture her.
Sometime later, it is unclear to Arlen whether she was only out for a couple of hours or days,
but when she wakes up, she is chained to the ground. Before she could make
sense of her situation and attempt to escape,
the woman who captured her returns and injects Arlen with an unknown substance.
Almost instantly, Arlen begins to lose sensation on her limbs. But before she can even fully lose
consciousness, the woman returns with a saw, and unceremoniously begins to saw off Arlen's limbs.
Unable to fight, Arlen watches in horror as the woman begins to hack at her right arm.
She tries to scream, but the other people around don't appear to care.
As the woman moves on to saw off Arlen's right leg, she finally loses consciousness.
The woman used a steaming hot iron pan to sear Arlen's limb to keep her from bleeding to death.
A few days later, Arlen's injuries are somewhat healed, but she remains chained to the ground.
Her captor has thankfully left Arlen her left arm and leg.
In the next few days that Arlen has been left tied outside, she begins to plan her escape.
When she finally regains a little more energy, she acts on her plan.
In the next morning, Arlen purposefully gets herself filthy with her own waste, leaving her
captor no choice but to unchain her to clean her up. While getting washed on the ground, Arlen gets
close enough to her captor to successfully hit her with a metal bar she has picked up next to her.
Mustering all her strength, Arlen whacks at the woman and bludgeons her to death.
With her captor left lying dead, Arlen is finally able to flee.
She desperately crawls away from the commune of these savage people. She manages to escape
through a discarded skateboard she finds among the discarded trash littered all around.
Working on pure adrenaline, Arlen is able to wheel herself away a considerable distance from
the commune. But travelling via skateboard under the blazing heat of the desert sun
is exhausting. Sooner than later, Arlen again begins to lose consciousness.
Before succumbing to heat exhaustion and dehydration, Arlen is rescued by
a traveling hermit. The hermit gives Arlen a ride on his push cart to a distant desert
settlement called Comfort. Upon her arrival at Comfort, the residents gather over her,
incredulous at her pitiful state but bewildered that she is alive anyway.
Five months later, Arlen is alive and even looking a little healthier.
She has been taken in by the residents of Comfort. They have given her a home within the settlement.
She even has a prosthetic leg that allows her to finally be able to walk again.
However, Arlen still harbors resentment towards the people that cut off her limbs.
Driven by anger, Arlen resolves to venture back out to the desert to try finding retribution.
Meanwhile, back in the commune, it is finally revealed why wanderers are getting
kidnapped and getting their limbs cut off. The residents of the commune, led by Miami Man,
eat the meat from the cutoff limbs of the drifters they find in the desert for survival.
The next day, Arlen leaves Comfort and returns to the desert with a loaded pistol in hand.
In her exploration, she comes across a golf cart similar to what her abductors used.
Realizing they must come from the same place, she approaches the vehicle.
At the area close by, she finds Miami Man's wife and daughter scavenging for supplies.
With a renewed rage boiling within her, Arlen confronts the woman.
She berates Miami Man's wife for eating other people.
The woman shows no remorse for doing what she does to survive, but she still begs for
her life. Unsatisfied with the woman's plea, Arlen shoots her in the head. Arlen, however,
feels pity for the daughter and decides to take the child back to Comfort to live with her.
Later that day, Miami Man realizes his wife and daughter have been gone for a while.
Feeling uneasy about his family's prolonged absence, he goes out to the desert
to try to find them. Miami Man searches for his family at their usual spot to scavenge.
He does not seem surprised by the sight of his wife's lifeless body,
already getting eaten by crows. He only cares about finding his daughter.
Looking farther around the area, Miami Man finds the wandering hermit.
He asks the hermit if he has seen his daughter around. Miami Man shows the old man a hand-drawn
sketch he has done of his daughter to jog his memory. Impressed by his skills,
the hermit makes Miami Man draw him, too, in exchange for information about his daughter.
Miami Man is desperate, and is left with no other choice. He sits down and starts
drawing the hermit. After he finishes the sketch, he presents his work of art to the
hermit. Satisfied with Miami Man's work, the hermit gives him a clue about his daughter's
whereabouts. The hermit man writes find Comfort on the picture of Miami Man's daughter.
Back at Comfort, Arlen has been taking care of Miami Man's daughter. She takes the child back
to her apartment and teaches her how to do her make-up. Later that night, Arlen takes
the child out to town. First she buys the child a pet rabbit and later brings her to a rave party.
At Comfort, there are frequent rave parties hosted by a cult-like leader called The Dream.
At these raves by The Dream, dr*gs are handed out to the residents. Arlen partakes in the
doling of a hallucinogen. She subsequently gets high and eventually loses track of the child.
Confused by the loud and chaotic crowd around her, the child wanders around Comfort alone.
While weaving through the sea of people, the child is spotted by The Dream.
The Dream beckons the child closer, interest twinkling in his eyes.
Without a second thought, he takes the child back into his house.
Still hallucinating from the party dr*gs she took at the rave, Arlen wanders back into the desert.
In her altered state, she is mesmerized by the beauty of the desert around her.
The magnificent stars and quiet calm outside play tricks on her mind's eye.
Her mind buzzes with a million thoughts, yet she finds herself at peace.
Coming down from her hallucinogenic trip, Arlen comes across the Miami Man in the middle of the
desert's nothingness. While she is still a little loopy, she starts talking to him
without any inhibitions. She even goes so far as to embrace the man she has never even met before.
The next morning, Arlen wakes up in the desert. She is sprawled on the ground and alone.
Shortly thereafter, Miami Man appears and approaches her again.
In her sleep, he has taken her prosthetic leg away from her. And now that the opiate
effects of the dr*gs have fully left her body, Arlen is able to feel fear again.
Once again, Miami Man shows his sketch of his daughter to Arlen. He asks her if she
has seen his daughter back at Comfort. Being the leader of the cannibalistic commune, Miami Man is
unable to enter the desert settlement himself. So, instead, he makes a deal with Arlen. In exchange
for her prosthetic leg and her freedom, she must help him find his daughter in Comfort.
After Arlen reluctantly agrees to Miami Man's deal, they begin the journey back to Comfort
together. While traveling, they come across another cannibal. The cannibal offers to trade
gasoline for Arlen. Initially agreeing, Miami Man leaves Arlen to the other guy.
When Arlen starts screaming for her life, Miami Man decides to rescue her instead.
Miami Man kills the other cannibal and takes his motorbike for him and Arlen to use.
Arlen and Miami Man grow closer on their journey back to Comfort.
During one of their stops on their long trip, the two talk about their lives. Miami
Man tells Arlen he was put into the bad batch because he was an illegal immigrant from Cuba.
But before they can grow even more closer, another Comfort resident comes across them. The newcomer,
believing Arden to be in danger, shoots Miami Man in the chest. With no other choice, Arlen
leaves the injured Miami Man behind and travels back to Comfort to finish her end of the deal.
Back in Comfort, Arlen begins her search for Miami Man's daughter. First, she tries asking around for
any sign of the girl. But since nobody seems to have any clue about what she is talking about,
Arlen thinks of a new plan. She asks around and makes copies of Miami Man's sketch.
She begins showing the picture to other residents as she asks for any information
about the child's whereabouts. Arlen's investigation leads her to the extravagant
mansion in the middle of Comfort that belongs to none other than The Dream.
In the mansion, Arlen discovers the true nature of the man calling himself The Dream.
He mongers dr*gs to the residents of Comfort to subvert them into his wishes.
He controls the economy with his dr*gs, and the dr*gs are made by the many young
women he has taken as wives. Arden is horrified to discover there are a
number of young women living in the mansion that have been impregnated by The Dream.
When Arlen finally locates Miami Man's daughter in the mansion, she devises a plan to rescue the
child. Arlen pretends to agree to join The Dream's harem. And when she lulls The Dream into trusting
her, she pulls out a pistol she has hidden in a secret compartment of her prosthetic leg to take
one of The Dream's pregnant wives hostage. In exchange for The Dream's pregnant wife,
Arlen demands for her and the child's freedom. The Dream is left with no choice but to oblige.
After successfully rescuing the child, they both leave Comfort to return to the desert.
They luckily find Miami Man is alive and has been nursed back to health by the hermit.
Arlen returns Miami Man's daughter to him and implies she wants to be
with them in the desert rather than live in Comfort. Miami Man tries to discourage her,
deeming her unable to survive out in the harsh desert, but does not send her away.
The movie ends with the new family unit, Miami Man, his daughter,
and Arlen out in the middle of the desert enjoying a quiet dinner of roasted rabbit.
Miami Man comforts his crying daughter while he and Arlen exchange smiling glances.