“Reboot” is a word bandied about so much in the film industry these days that its meaning has become entirely elastic, referring to anything from a sequel to a remake to a mildly delayed franchise chapter.
A lo-fi, high-volume original character piece from Ben Wheatley, “Happy New Year, Colin Burstead” is none of these things — and yet, in the sense that a reboot describes a freshly started system following technical complications, it feels like one for this genre-roaming writer-director.
After mixed returns for the dizzy formal chaos of his J.G.
Ballard adaptation “High-Rise” and the vapid shoot-’em-up varnish of “Free Fire,” Wheatley’s restless study of a dysfunctional family reunited for a prickly New Year’s Eve party is a back-to-basics affair that rewardingly sets him back in the seasick domestic space of his debut “Down Terrace,” albeit with words as its only weapons this time.Working without his usual writing partner Amy Jump,
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