Librafan

Why take a high quality, first rate production and remake it?

The Turkish version was far more honest, the writing was stronger, and the production value and cinematography certainly supported the narrative far more than this version. Not a waste of time but certainly not a reason to justify this remake. It just tries too hard, and isn't convincing when it matters most. The underworld characters felt flat (writing to blame as much as the acting) and far too many scenes were void of conflict with uneven pacing (editing to blame here too).

Like Blood & Water before it, this comes across as a night time soap opera that lacks gravitas. Would love to know how and why so many of these far below average productions are being acquired by Netflix.

I'm beside myself because I keep waiting for and expecting M. Night to change his stripes as a filmmaker. But his films keep recycling themes and relationships that he already explored much earlier in his career and was far better at it. I also for the life of me cannot understand how Batista keeps getting roles like this. He's incredibly bad, and not even interesting because if he at least had that, I'd be able to stomach his roles despite him never being believable in anything I've seen. M. Night is partially to blame because he seems to have dropped off in quality regarding the actors he chooses to use. I would recommend passing on this film, it was awful.

This film reminded me so much of A Simple Plan, obviously without the household names in it but never-the-less a classic old school noir. Beautifully shot, very well acted and a kickass score to boot! I'll definitely be looking out for this director's next film. I didn't see the end coming, and there's no doubt this thriller is a slow burn but that's what I loved about it. I'm also curious where it was filmed because so much of the film felt rural, and then it opened up into a sort of beach-house coastal world. Final thoughts, I enjoyed it more than most of what I'm seeing on Netflix these days which all seems very similar and box checking in terms of themes. This film was refreshing because it was smarter than that. It felt more like a European style thriller, possibly French, maybe even Scandinavian.