The Postcard Killings

Serial killers will always be fodder for movies, good and bad. It's not worth quoting examples, anyone reading this has probably seen at least ten movies about serial killers. This is one more, based on original Scandinavian material that I've never seen, but I'd like to see it, and I'll try to find it. Honestly, I hope it's better than the movie I just saw...

The film is not bad. Don't get me wrong. It has a good base premise: murders that imitate famous works of art all over Europe, with the father of one of the victims desperately trying to catch the culprit. But it's not at all original, it does the same things that we're tired of seeing in established films, and it doesn't manage to go beyond the usual recipe to offer us something that makes it stand out. And there is a huge problem that partially ruins the film: we discover the identity of those who are killing people too soon and, from there, it is only worth watching the film to see how the police will hunt down their target.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan is a very solid and competent protagonist, able to commit himself and give the character the consistency and anguish that it demands. Undoubtedly, the actor's performance is a bonus in the film. Despite being heavily criticized, I think Famke Janssen wasn't that bad. She does have depressing moments and sometimes goes overboard, but she gives us a relatively satisfying job, and doesn't have many opportunities to really fail. Joachim Krol seems to be out of place and lost. Naomi Battrick is quite good, taking into account that she is not a frontline actress and has handled a character who demands a certain charisma and attitude; Ruairi O'Connor, honestly, cannot say he is happy, he erases himself even in scenes where he is more visible.

Technically, it's a regular film without great merits, but it doesn't fail too much either: the European settings and landscapes, always pleasant no matter how commonplace they may be, are joined by standard cinematography and ordinary work on the costumes. Some well-crafted effects and a lukewarm soundtrack make for a cohesive and functional, if forgettable, whole.

For the amount of hate in these reviews, I just wanted to say it I thought it was interesting, entertaining & kept my interest. I agree not these actors best work, or a great film, but damn it's an okay thriller. It is what it is. Just let it do it's thing.

This was an intense serial killer film and it died on entry and then kept dying. Bad acting from start to finish. Constantly you can tell they cut scenes. It was so choppy. Then they have loud emotional crying from both main characters, but they never developed the characters enough to believe or care they are hurt. Horrible acting horrible script.

This was such a great idea for a movie, but they killed it.

A random night in and looking for inspiration of something to watch. Amazon were pushing this acquisition of theirs with some banner advertising and I decided to give it a go. It's an OK redux of "Se7en" that passed an evening, but nothing more.

When his daughter is killed whilst on honeymoon in London, Jacob Kanon (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), a veteran detective from New York, pushes his way into the investigation. He discovers that their murder is one of a string across Europe's capital cities, with each pair of victims mutilated and staged like a classical artwork. The murderer is also sending a postcard to a local journalist ahead of each killing to announce their arrival. In Stockholm, Kanon manages to get to the reporter, Dessie Lombard (Cush Jumbo), before the murder takes place.

Adapted from the James Patterson novel, the film has a decent enough storyline to build around. You'll probably be ahead of who is committing the murders before the film reveals it, but that's OK as it's not really a whodunnit, more a why and will they be captured-unnit. Performances are OK. Morgan does well enough as the lead, nobody else is particularly asked to do that much heavy lifting. Famke Janssen has to do some of the investigation back in the States opposite Denis O'Hare, who shows up in a typical Denis O'Hare type role.

The trouble is, it's all been done before and better in other films, even TV series have the capacity now to be as gory and country hopping as this is. It just doesn't have any particular elements that elevate it beyond the passable stage. Also, as a European myself, it's got some pretty laughable ideas about how policing works over here, bear in mind we're in major capital cities here, not small towns. Kanon seems staggeringly unable to comprehend why the other officers won't let the father of one of the victims into the crime scenes and allow him to handle evidence. He then sticks a map of Europe to his bedroom wall and circles London and Madrid and draws a straight line between them, that'll tell him loads.

I didn't think it was as terrible as some other seem to have, but it's certain derivative and mundane and I doubt I'll remember it at all in a couple of weeks.

Just so much of it didn't gel. Morgan's acting for one. There are some unbelievably hammy scenes. Did he not learn to summon an authentic sense memory to trigger a convincing cry?

As a whole, the movie also could have been more cinematic. The scale seems small for being set in half-a-dozen countries. And that doesn't so the adaptation justice.

A lot of this comes across as a decent episode of a procedural show. That is the overall feel. The execution could have been so much better since the source material and story appear to have some interesting elements.