To Catch a Killer

Just by watching the trailer, I was annoyed with Mendelsohn's character Lammark, and I questioned casting Woodley as a beat cop - I mean there are so many other more convincing female actors out there. But oddly enough, both actors and their characters grew on me as the film progressed.

I'm also not a fan of slow paced films, and this one mostly is, but oddly enough, Argentinian co-writer and director Damián Szifron (in his first English film debut) made it all work with engaging scenes and circumstances. His directing was spot-on, and although there was ambiguity to many scenes and dialogue, the film came together like an old school psycho-thriller/police procedural. It felt like a non-Hollywood-stylized movie version of a better Criminal Minds episode.

The story was nothing revolutionary, but delivered enough suspense at the right moments, built intriguing character interest, and had some riveting action just at the right times to keep me fully engaged throughout the entire almost two hour runtime. So considering the current slim pickings out there for down and out enjoyable thriller/cop films, this one is a winner, and a definite recommend from me.

I'm a huge fan of thrillers. Silence of the Lambs, and Se7ven are among my favorite movies of all time so I had high hopes after having watched the trailer.

So why the low rating. Cinematography is great (lighting, color grading, audio, etc.), Shailene Woodley as the lead does a good job but overall the story is just too thin and the majority of the cast is not delivering.

Would have loved to see a deeper story where you really felt attached to the detectives - just like Mills/Sommerset or Starling in the aforementioned movies. And also the killer here is underwhelming - not played well and his raison d'etre is just not good enough.

So hoping for this genre to grow but unfortunately this movie does not deliver and will not be one to remember.

Misanthrope (To Catch a Killer) delivers a chilling and brutal chase after a shooter that manages to evade technology surveillance and large scale police forces. Our protagonist is a climb-from-the-bottom police officer with good motivation and talent. The chase after the killer will go through hard scenes, politics and personal confrontations going all the way to a conclusion which is in some ways predictable and in some ways not.

Overall, Misanthrope is a believable thriller that will keep you thinking and guessing all the way through. The characters are great and we are given just enough background on each to have us care without boring us with irrelevant details. Although there is plenty of action, the movie is not "a bullet a second" and there is plenty of drama and dialogues in between, which is a breath of fresh air compared to all the beautiful-CGI no-story films we see out of Hollywood.

I liked "Misanthrope". It is well made, well acted and well written. It will not win any Oscars, but I still recommend it to anybody who is into crime drama and police action movies. Exact score: 72 / 100.

Shailene Woodley has never stood out, (to me), in any particularly noteworthy way as an actor. Actually, that sounds a lot harsher than intended. In more courteous terminology, she has always executed her roles well, but never enough in my estimation, to count as an actor who I would deliberately look forward to seeing in films - until now.

In "To Catch A Killer" she delivers such a strong and believable performance as a precarious beat officer, that she practically steals the spotlight. Here, I have to draw your attention to the word "practically", because in this film, Woodley is paired with Ben Mendelsohn who also delivers such a successfully rich, compelling and powerful depiction of an aging and enervated senior FBI detective, that it is difficult to tell who outdoes the other with and within the efficacy of their roles. To me, they kind of throw the torch (or baton) of excellence to one another, scene by scene.

As if the near-perfect delivery and chemistry of the leads was not enough, despite some of the token villainous characters and scenarios being a bit over-the-top, the acting by most everyone else was also above-average. This is especially true of Ralph Ineson, who was simply, low-key great.

My biggest and mostly only complaint upon first-viewing, was that a little over 3/4's of the way through, the film kind of changes direction a bit, which made the ending feel uneven and somewhat unfulfilling. In RETROSPECT, however, I think that the way it took somewhat of a shift might be the best thing they could have done with it. Had they gone in any other direction, it would be much too easy to chalk this up as a film which ended in a predictable or 'done before' manner.

As it is, To Catch a Killer ended the way it began: as a solid, stand-alone feature that was immersive, tense and thought-provoking through and through.

7.8/10.

So it's like most crime dramas, you know, there's a killer, false lead, false lead, then true lead, true lead until they catch him.

The first part was like that, like most crime movies. But I liked the second part, I'm not going to spoil anything, but the characters and their motivations felt real, felt like it could happen to anyone in this day and age. It left me thinking about a lot of stuff, it left me with a bitter taste in my mouth, a bit sad about what happened and overall the killer's story, which is more sad than violent.

Overall I really enjoyed it, it's a slow burner but it pays off. I recommend it.