‘Sorry, Haters’ is a head scratcher

What begins as a tense, give-and-take Manhattan cab ride -- one in which a nervous Muslim driver (Abdellatif Kechiche) befriends a strangely more nervous television network employee (Robin Wright Penn) -- becomes an unhinged personality-disorder thriller in writer-director Jeff Stanzler’s feature shot on digital video, “Sorry, Haters.” (The title refers to a “Cribs”-ish series on the youth-oriented MTV-ish channel Penn works for, and of course, something more.)

Like an edgy chamber drama with an unnecessary and unwelcome trapdoor, “Sorry, Haters” worries itself into being with the notion that a wealthy, vengeful, guilt-ridden white woman will do whatever it takes to help a Syrian emigre whose brother has been arrested as a terrorist sympathizer, only to ignore its open-wound emotions in favor of freaky twists and collision course theatrics. The last act is guaranteed to make the eyeballs snap open, but the mind -- after watching Kechiche and Penn caroming like arcade pinballs in Stanzler’s manipulative psychodrama of sinister intentions and urban helplessness -- will likely have slammed shut by then. If there is anything to be taken from the head scratching sure to ensue upon seeing “Sorry, Haters,” it could be a fruitful discussion posed by the question: What kind of post-9/11 cinema do we really want?

-- Robert Abele.

“Sorry, Haters” (Unrated) Running time: 1 hour, 23 minutes. Exclusively at the Academy, 1003 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, (626) 229-9400; Grande, Figueroa and Third streets, downtown Los Angeles, (213) 617-0268.