This starts off strong. On new years eve, during the fireworks, someone snipes random people celebrating from a highrise. As the police piece trace the bullet trajectories, suddenly several laserpointers at once point at one apartment, and the terror and extent of the crime becomes apparent. The apartment then blows up, leaving no evidence.
An eerie (but overused and never expanded) score sets in, setting the mood for the overwhelming mystery of how to catch this killer.
For the first few minutes, the investigation is interesting. The film nails the police procedural. Where is lacks, unfortunately, is the main character. For some inexplicable reason (aka bad writing) a female beat cop is invited to act as the FBI chief investigator's de facto partner. He says it's because she is intelligent and honest. This and other lines are supposed to establish our protagonist as capable, but it walks right into the same Mary Sue trap like the recent Star Wars films, where everyone constantly tells the audience how great Rey is.
Don't tell us, show us.
Having a super capable protagonist is boring. As an audience, you connect with a protagonist through their struggles. To be fair, they give her a backstory of depression and a few failings, but for most of the movie she's just there, saying the smartest lines in the room and whatever is necessary to get the plot moving. The best moments are the few ones where she isn't in control of the situation. When she goes behind her boss's back at one point and gets reprimanded, in the morgue and when the killer strikes again, and towards the very end. Having her feel helpless before a monumental task increases the stakes and suspense.
Suspense is where this film falls flat, unfortunately. Classics like Manhunter, Silence of the Lambs etc all had scenes of the killer preparing and executing their crimes. In Manhunter, these scenes were just as interesting as the police procedural parts, and it created a great rhythm and sense of urgency. Here, the killer isn't seen except in one short scene.
I mentioned woke in my headline. Is the film very woke? Yes and no. There is one ham fisted scene regarding gay marriage. They set it up well enough, with the protagonist accusing the FBI guy of wanting to have sex with her. He says he's married, she asks since when, he says "since we were allowed to". Clever line, would have sufficed. But no, they need to tack on a whole scene at home with the husband that adds nothing and merely interrupts the narrative thrust, throwing in a character we never see again speculating on the killer's motive in a way that doesn't pay off. Every line he says is presented as some profound criticism of America's global politics and society. It has nothing to do with the story. It's a shoed in woke diatribe. Misusing art for politics is called propaganda. I don't like propaganda in my entertainment. Add to that the aforementioned mary sue problem with the protagonist, and you have the usual woke tropes of modern day screenwriting. It's a shame, because the film would have been better without it.
There is another scene in a slaughterhouse and with the killer being vegan that some might consider woke, but it feeds in to the killer's motive, which criticized by other reviewers. I found his motive great, and it's a shame it was never explored beyond surface level platitudes. He's only in the film for maybe 5-10 minutes, and never links to the protagonist, despite the writers establishing her personal background and a shared motif in their lives.
The ingredients were there to make this a truly riveting psychological thriller with a satisfying character driven narrative and conclusion.
Unfortunately, the script is mostly plot driven and then goes completely off the rails after their meeting, with not just one, but two ridiculous resolutions.
On a technical level the film is impressively shot. The director does some interesting camera work, though sometimes superfluous. There are a few montage edits, that feel jarring, but overall on a technical level this is a film that's shot and edited well, and not color graded to hell like so many modern films. Kudos to the DP.
The acting is a mixed bag. The actors mostly go through their scenes with workmanlike efficiency, but there is no room for them to really display their craft. There's no Anthony Hopkins or Tom Noonan theatricality here, nor really any emotion at all. The film feels very sterile, which is usually a sign of a rushed production. The best actor to me was the lady who played the killer's mother.
Overall this is a competently made film, which makes its shortcomings all the more frustrating. It could have been great. Photography, score, actors, it was all there. It just needed a better script and to devote more time to character building instead of social justice tropes that have nothing to do with character development or story. If those combined 10 minutes of dinner scene and mary sue scenes would have instead been used to establish a compelling connection between the killer and the protagonist, or even just scenes giving us an insight into the killer's mind, this would have been amazing.
Scores: Direction and technical aspects: 8/10 Writing: 3/10 Final 5/10 with a point deducted for wasted potential.
An eerie (but overused and never expanded) score sets in, setting the mood for the overwhelming mystery of how to catch this killer.
For the first few minutes, the investigation is interesting. The film nails the police procedural. Where is lacks, unfortunately, is the main character. For some inexplicable reason (aka bad writing) a female beat cop is invited to act as the FBI chief investigator's de facto partner. He says it's because she is intelligent and honest. This and other lines are supposed to establish our protagonist as capable, but it walks right into the same Mary Sue trap like the recent Star Wars films, where everyone constantly tells the audience how great Rey is.
Don't tell us, show us.
Having a super capable protagonist is boring. As an audience, you connect with a protagonist through their struggles. To be fair, they give her a backstory of depression and a few failings, but for most of the movie she's just there, saying the smartest lines in the room and whatever is necessary to get the plot moving. The best moments are the few ones where she isn't in control of the situation. When she goes behind her boss's back at one point and gets reprimanded, in the morgue and when the killer strikes again, and towards the very end. Having her feel helpless before a monumental task increases the stakes and suspense.
Suspense is where this film falls flat, unfortunately. Classics like Manhunter, Silence of the Lambs etc all had scenes of the killer preparing and executing their crimes. In Manhunter, these scenes were just as interesting as the police procedural parts, and it created a great rhythm and sense of urgency. Here, the killer isn't seen except in one short scene.
I mentioned woke in my headline. Is the film very woke? Yes and no. There is one ham fisted scene regarding gay marriage. They set it up well enough, with the protagonist accusing the FBI guy of wanting to have sex with her. He says he's married, she asks since when, he says "since we were allowed to". Clever line, would have sufficed. But no, they need to tack on a whole scene at home with the husband that adds nothing and merely interrupts the narrative thrust, throwing in a character we never see again speculating on the killer's motive in a way that doesn't pay off. Every line he says is presented as some profound criticism of America's global politics and society. It has nothing to do with the story. It's a shoed in woke diatribe. Misusing art for politics is called propaganda. I don't like propaganda in my entertainment. Add to that the aforementioned mary sue problem with the protagonist, and you have the usual woke tropes of modern day screenwriting. It's a shame, because the film would have been better without it.
There is another scene in a slaughterhouse and with the killer being vegan that some might consider woke, but it feeds in to the killer's motive, which criticized by other reviewers. I found his motive great, and it's a shame it was never explored beyond surface level platitudes. He's only in the film for maybe 5-10 minutes, and never links to the protagonist, despite the writers establishing her personal background and a shared motif in their lives.
The ingredients were there to make this a truly riveting psychological thriller with a satisfying character driven narrative and conclusion.
Unfortunately, the script is mostly plot driven and then goes completely off the rails after their meeting, with not just one, but two ridiculous resolutions.
On a technical level the film is impressively shot. The director does some interesting camera work, though sometimes superfluous. There are a few montage edits, that feel jarring, but overall on a technical level this is a film that's shot and edited well, and not color graded to hell like so many modern films. Kudos to the DP.
The acting is a mixed bag. The actors mostly go through their scenes with workmanlike efficiency, but there is no room for them to really display their craft. There's no Anthony Hopkins or Tom Noonan theatricality here, nor really any emotion at all. The film feels very sterile, which is usually a sign of a rushed production. The best actor to me was the lady who played the killer's mother.
Overall this is a competently made film, which makes its shortcomings all the more frustrating. It could have been great. Photography, score, actors, it was all there. It just needed a better script and to devote more time to character building instead of social justice tropes that have nothing to do with character development or story. If those combined 10 minutes of dinner scene and mary sue scenes would have instead been used to establish a compelling connection between the killer and the protagonist, or even just scenes giving us an insight into the killer's mind, this would have been amazing.
Scores: Direction and technical aspects: 8/10 Writing: 3/10 Final 5/10 with a point deducted for wasted potential.