Every so often, I come across a film that has me wondering: Who is this for? Michael Gan’s “Burn,” starring Tilda Cobham-Hervey and Josh Hutcherson is one such film. 

The film takes place mostly in a gas station somewhere in rural America, where attendants Melinda (Cobham-Hervey) and Sheila (Suki Waterhouse) have the graveyard shift. The two aren’t friends, with Melinda being a bit odd and Sheila getting most of the attention from customers due to her looks. 

Melinda has a crush on Officer Liu (Harry Shum Jr.), a fresh addition to the local police force who has some history with her. Billy (Hutcherson), who seeks to rob the store in order to pay off his debt to a biker gang, serves as the first wildcard element in the film, which prompts Melinda to make a series of questionable decisions in the moment that ultimately lead to the demise of a few people, and the store. 

Gan is the writer/director of this film, and his script is extremely awkward, though I can’t tell if it’s intentionally so. The film is off-putting by design and its premise relies a bit too heavily on the audience’s suspension of disbelief; none of his characters act in a believable manner, often making the opposite decisions any reasonable person would make.  

Melinda is the prime offender of this (minor spoilers). She has this innate need to leave the gas station and start a new life with a stranger, so much so she initially takes Billy’s side by doing everything she can to aid him in his robbery, even though it’s clear he cares little for her or what’s in her best interest. There is a scene where she tries to rape him and she hurts multiple people — there’s this overwhelming sense that something is wrong with her, but the film never quiet specifies what. 

Perhaps that’s the most interesting aspect of the film, but it also makes it feel incomplete. Cobham-Hervey portrays Melinda as a troubled young person who makes rash spur-of-the-moment decisions that take her down a dark path, much like Joe Goldberg in “You,” but there’s not more to her character than that. 

Similarly, her co-lead, Hutcherson, does his best given how limited the material he’s working with is, though he is clearly miscast. Gan seems to have been going for a suave and attractive criminal with Billy, but Hutcherson fails to pull off the darker aspects to his character. 

“Burn” is an average thriller that has horror elements into it — it’s labeled as a black comedy, but it’s not a good one. There are several good moments to this film, but they don’t add up to a satisfying whole. 

“Burn” gets a 6/10