Miro (Zivko Anocic) is a upwardly mobile, successful businessman with a loving family and a lot to lose. He makes a grave error while away on a trip when a prostitute shows up to his room unannounced and he taking advantage of her services. He later finds her dead in his room, and his situation begins to spiral out of his control when two hotel workers (Krešimir Mikić as Belc and Nikša Butijer as Davor) agree to clean up his mess for him. There’s no need to call the police. It was an accident… These things happen with this sort of clientele… Miro is obviously not to blame here. Unfortunately for Miro, this will not be the last he will see of these manipulative, deranged men who have trapped him in their web of blackmail and mystery.

The Escort is unfortunately Croatian director Lukas Nola’s swan song, Nola having passed away in 2022 before the wide distribution of his final film. The circumstance is doubly unfortunate since what we have here is a complex and visually assured film that challenges the viewer with a plot that, while starting off as a more traditional erotic thriller, veers into the surreal in the back half of the film with sly elements of dark humor tinged along the edges. It’s the work of a filmmaker who seems to have found his footing and has delivered an assured effort that shows remarkable promise. At times one may say this film feels Kafka-esque as our protagonist seems to dig his grave ever deeper as events spiral beyond his control more and more. To emphasis this dichotomy of contrasts in how the characters are perceived vs. who they really are at their cores, cinematographer Frane Pamić uses highly saturated neon-drenched visuals to capture how heightened the situation Miro finds himself in becomes. At its core, The Escort is a character piece, interested in exploring the flawed and fractured personality of Miro thrust into this bizarre and seemingly unsalvageable situation. While this could lead to a mismatch in expectations based on how the film is marketed and how the first act plays out, if you come into this one with an open mind, it may impress more than you expect.

It’s unfortunate that Indiepix has elected to only release this film on DVD. The richly textured cinematography frankly deserves better. As you would imagine from a 480p transfer, the image is soft with the usual lack of clear definition. As far as DVDs go, it’s not bad, but it could have looked so much clearer in 1080p. It does appear that the film is available to stream in HD on the Indiepix Unlimited service if you aren’t picky about needing the film on physical media (but I mean… who reading this wouldn’t be?). The audio is a pretty standard 2.0 stereo track with clean separation and no distortion to speak of. The disc is barebones and contains no extras.

While the technical presentation of The Escort leaves something to be desired, the film itself, is a fascinating slow twist of the knife that will get under your skin if you give it a chance.