It’s brutal, but it’s not constant or gratuitous. I spoil nothing when I say that violence ensues. The band just wants to leave understandably, they don’t trust Darcy when he says his squad of jackbooted thugs doesn’t want to “silence” them. Amber (Imogen Poots), a club regular who witnessed the same bad thing the band saw, is also involved. (One of the occupational hazards of being a bald white actor is that at some point you’ll be hired to play a skinhead.) With his sonorous, authoritative voice, Darcy calls to the Ain’t Rights in the green room from out in the corridor, pleading for a peaceful resolution to the standoff, which has one of his bouncers, Big Justin (Eric Edelstein), locked in with them. His name is Darcy, and he’s played by Patrick Stewart, a model of pragmatism. The owner of the venue and leader of the white supremacists is a sensible businessman who pays his taxes and enforces the fire codes. Unnervingly, the bad guys are just as rational. Yet in a crisis, they react rationally, almost always doing what we (from our safe, objective vantage point) figure we would have done, too. They’re very serious about the purity of their art, like experienced adults might be but they also siphon gas from parked cars when they don’t have enough money to fill up their van, like dumb kids might do. The band, called the Ain’t Rights, comprises four college-age kids - Pat (Anton Yelchin), Sam (Alia Shawkat), Reece (Joe Cole), and Tiger (Callum Turner) - who exhibit the usual youthful naiveté and punk-rock recklessness. It helps that the plot doesn’t depend on anyone being an idiot. Every time the film seems on the verge of getting repetitive or claustrophobic, there’s a new development. Though it’s primarily a siege scenario - the band members barricade themselves in the venue’s dressing room after witnessing something the skinheads wish they hadn’t - the story goes in more directions (figuratively and geographically) than you’d expect, and Saulnier never lets it get stagnant. It’s from writer-director Jeremy Saulnier, whose contemplative revenge drama “Blue Ruin” was more of a simmering boil than this intense, explosive nightmare. The second time I saw it, I was alarmed to discover that already knowing what was going to happen didn’t help. The first time I saw it, I hardly breathed. “Green Room” starts with that uncomfortable arrangement (“Don’t talk politics,” advises the guy who set it up) and descends from there into expertly crafted cold-sweat terror. One of the occupational hazards of being a young, struggling punk band is that sometimes the roadhouse where you’ve booked a gig turns out to be a den of Nazi skinheads.

Mark webber actor green room