Pierce Brosnan Gave A Terrifying Performance In This A24 Movie Exclusive To Hulu

We're going through a bit of a Pierce Brosnanaissance in the 2020s and long may it continue. The Irish actor was absolutely brilliant in "Mobland," the Paramount+ series that started as a spin-off of "Ray Donovan" but evolved into a delightfully over-the-top London-set crime thriller. As Irish mob boss Conrad Harrigan, Brosnan was somehow both calmly calculating and absolutely off-the-wall insane in what might be his best performance of the last decade — though he did steal each of his brief scenes in Steven Soderbergh's sleek spy thriller "Black Bag." But the actor was no slouch in 2021's "False Positive," as you can see for yourself, since the film is available to stream right now on Hulu.

The psychological horror film was directed by John Lee, who co-wrote the script with the film's star, Ilana Glazer. The pair had previously worked together on Glazer's comedy series "Broad City," but turned their attention to something much darker with "False Positive," which sees Brosnan play a world-renowned fertility doctor who isn't quite what he seems. The actor delivers a genuinely creepy performance in this overlooked horror film that didn't make much of a stir when it first debuted.

"False Positive" premiered at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival before heading straight to Hulu on June 25 of that year. Naturally, given the lack of a theatrical run, it sort of came and went, even with the benefit of bearing the A24 brand. The perpetually buzzy company produced "False Positive," but it didn't seem to boost the film's profile much. A less-than-ideal critical response didn't help, either. Still, there's a lot to like about Glazer and Lee's horror, and Brosnan absolutely relishing playing a villain is just one example.

"False Positive" stars Ilana Glazer as copywriter Lucy Martin and Justin Theroux as her husband, Adrian. The couple has been trying to conceive for two years to no avail, before hope arrives in the form of a fertility doctor and Adrian's former teacher, John Hindle (Pierce Brosnan). After visiting Hindle, Lucy becomes pregnant with two male twins and a female. It's a miracle! Except Hindle becomes increasingly creepy with each new visit, suggesting that Lucy undergo reduction surgery to either remove the twins or the daughter. After deciding to keep the girl, Lucy grows increasingly suspicious of Hindle, who turns out not to have been the savior the couple needed.

/Film's Hoai-Tran Bui found "False Positive" to be a laborious "Rosemary's Baby" riff, and Beatrice Loayza of The New York Times concurred, writing that "False Positive" "aspires to be a modern version of 'Rosemary's Baby,' but ... ultimately lands somewhere between tepid and confused." It wasn't all negative, however. David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter described the movie as "Clever, creepy and original enough to keep you glued," and complimented Brosnan's "chillingly effective performance." The San Francisco Chronicle's G. Allen Johnson was similarly impressed by the film, and noted how Brosnan was "perfecting a suave sort of sliminess."

If nothing else, then, it's an absolute pleasure to watch Brosnan relish his late-career roles, having grown tired of being "shackled by some contracted image," as he put it to CBS News back in 2005. As with every actor to play 007, Brosnan seemed to resent the baggage that came with it. But in recent years, he seems to be having a ball, especially when he gets to play villains. "False Positive" is worth watching on Hulu for that alone.