Zal Batmanglij's "The East'

What with "North" and "West" being taken these days by the flap over naming the progeny of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, not to mention Alfred Hitchcock's long-ago North by Northwest, the number of usable quadrants has shrunk drastically of late. Maybe that's why Zal Batmanglij's political thriller is called The East. Or maybe, as the director and his co-author star Brit Marling have explained, it's a reference to the East Coast, or the Middle East, or the Far East, or . . . whatever.

You shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but when filmmakers can't figure out the rationale for their title, let the buyer beware. The East is almost a primer in how not to do political paranoia, borrowing elements from other recent essays in the genre like Robert Redford's The Company You Keep and Gus Van Sant's Promised Land, and going back to the vein of political paranoia first mined by Alan Pakula's The Parallax View. It's also, as the current National Security Agency spying scandal has made clear, several cycles behind real world events.

Sarah Moss (Marling) is an agent for a private security firm with the unsubtle name of Hiller Brood. Its job is to keep evil corporations safe from eco-terrorists (the film's own term of art) who mean to expose them by attacks called "jams" that will give them— literally, in one case— a taste of their own medicine.

Bedding down with hippies

Sarah's job is to infiltrate the group that calls itself The East, whose icon is a compass pointed in that direction. She's just been hired, but without training and with only Hiller Brood's boss lady (Patricia Clarkson) to report to, she goes out into the field. This pursuit consists of jumping a freight train and bedding down with some hippie hoboes, who turn out to be the very party she seeks (she figures this out because one of the them conveniently sports the compass icon).

The East consists, it seems, of half a dozen 20- and- 30-something dropouts from the ruling class who live commune-style and bond by playing spin the bottle (I kid you not) and engaging in baptismal-like bathing rituals, supposedly to prepare them for taking down the power structure. As the group's leader, Benji (Alexander SkarsgÓ¥rd), solemnly informs Sarah, "A revolution is never easy."

The East's first target is a drug company that has sold the government on a new wonder drug that's supposed to provide resistance to all kinds of exotic diseases encountered on the playing fields of Africa and other dangerous locales. The Feds have agreed to inoculate the entire military with this drug. But Doc, one of The East's operatives (Toby Kebbell), happens to know that its side effect is a personality-destroying paranoia. I can't imagine why The East would not want to zap the Pentagon this way, but maybe it has a sweet spot for secret bases, black holes and undeclared wars?

Spiking the champagne

In any case, The East members dress up formally to serve as caterers to the company's private celebration party, where they spike the champagne with the new drug. Oh, and you're wondering how these scruffy kids managed to replace the company's usual catering service and crash security for the party? Well, no silly questions here; just follow the storyboard.

The East's next jam targets an energy company that has catastrophically polluted the environment, and whose chief executive just happens to be the father of Izzy, another gang member. This time, Dad's to be stripped naked and thrown into the bath of solvents he's made of the local lake. He emerges from this reverse baptism tearful and repentant, but Izzy is cut down by company bullets, and that's a bummer.

One last caper remains (last? Has the revolution come so soon?), and you can probably guess the target. This time, Sarah must ante up and decide which side she's on, if any. The audience just needs to figure out the quickest way to the exits.

Promised Land and The Company You Keep were flawed and ultimately unsatisfying films, but they addressed serious issues and granted their characters some respect. The East simply pits comic-book stereotypes against each other. This film about a compass has absolutely none of its own.