“Soundwave” Takes on High-Concept Sci-Fi on a Budget

Theaters are closed, movies delayed, and access to press screenings are limited to streaming. There’s no better time to highlight smaller films — amazing movies without the big-studio marketing budget that makes it harder for you to find. Discover a new film festival darling and support new, emerging, and independent filmmakers. Sheltering in place doesn’t need to stop you from your weekend evening escape to the movies. Follow the flurry of upcoming reviews on Twitter, or find all my reviews for movies you can stream from right at home. At some point as a child, you were probably hungry and took the gamble of complaining to your parents. With any luck, you would get exactly what you wanted, but the more likely scenario is familiar: you’re told there’s food in the house and to get creative. Getting creative is what brings us a new indie thriller, Soundwave. And while no Decepticon is involved, Soundwave does make its own twist on a sci-fi concept as a teenager, Ben (Hunter Doohan), finds himself hunted by both the police and organized crime for an invention he created that allows its user to hear into the past. Written and directed by Dylan K. Narang, Soundwave takes a tricky concept and doles out its explanation slowly. We don’t see Ben’s creation of the invention — it’s already there and functional when we meet him, a meek teenager working in a small, struggling radio repair shop in the city — and Ben is already mixed up in using his device in various ways. One of those …