Exposed

While Knock-Knock was a mishap, Keanu Reeves still carries the buzz from John Wick, so it's peculiar to see his new movie flies under the radar. It's soon apparent that "Exposed" has a rather jumbled presentation. The movie uses multi perspective style and it does try to deliver heavy subject such as abuse, but it's ultimately too broken to create any appropriate connection.

The two perspectives are too messy, as though the screenplay or editing is done sloppily. Keanu's point of view is that of noir detective, although the investigation moves so slowly and erratically. Meanwhile Ana de Armas plays as a troubled wife who might just see some apparition. From the color tone, the pace and even the script, these two stories are utterly different.

It's not to say that there's not an artistic goal in mind, it could have dealt with mature theme well, however the jarring shift is confusing to say the least. It would jump from festive vibe, to brooding case and suddenly to what seems to be psychological thriller with metaphor. This is a really odd direction and it doesn't have to be such, it feels as though the movie tries to needlessly overreach.

Both the leads perform admirably, in some instances Ana de Armas looks amiable and Keanu Reeves still has his appealing presence. However, the plot is chaotic, there would be incredibly slow development and subplots, yet it would hasten abruptly in mere minutes. The few segments from other angles don't really pan out in the grand scheme, while its intended twist is hampered by over saturation of horror genre, which is odd to see in crime drama.

This kind of sudden change is not uncommon, some thriller movies shifted to more action atmosphere for casual audience or some action flicks would be altered to accommodate more famous stars. Still, the extreme shift of tone here doesn't have any appeal instead it's only a distraction.

"Exposed" could have had a surreal depth for narrative, yet it's a just a confusing mess that barely has any charm and even that small spark is muddle with messy production.

"Exposed" is flawed, but has interesting elements. The film was originally titled "Daughter of God," directed by first-time director Gee Malik Linton. The original production was reportedly surreal, very political and multi-cultural. But financing fell through and the producers turned to Lionsgate, who invested in what they thought was a thriller centered on Keanu Reeve's character. The studio didn't feel the original film held broad audience appeal and re-cut it to conform to the film they thought they had invested in. Subsequently, Linton disavowed the film and sued to have his name removed from his only theatrical credit.

The final result reflects the production's uneven genesis. There are two story lines, one in Spanish with subtitles and another in English, which interweave and ultimately merge. Two other story lines seem a bit disjointed and incomplete, presumably due to wholesale cuts.

The story lines share a common theme concerning reluctance to pursue the truth for fear of the consequences. One character was severely traumatized by a childhood experience. Current events conspire to push this character over the edge, compelling a response to the inner turmoil. Another character seeks to uncover the truth about a friend who was not the person he thought and who had secrets he would rather not have learned. There are also a few surrealistic events that don't make much sense, but may have made more sense in the original version. And an individual's death leads to unexpected consequences.

The underlying whodunit is intriguing with some satisfying twists. The truncated subplots provide ample red herrings, although they aren't entirely satisfying. If the film had been shot as detective story, the writer and director would have taken markedly different approaches. What we have is a bit of a hodgepodge that affords glimpses of the story that it might have been. If the director and writer had concentrated on the mystery rather than the social commentary, they would have had a much better film. Having not seen the original film, I cannot comment on how effective it was as a social commentary, although it reportedly received generally favorable reviews from the preview audiences.

Difficult movie to watch overall. Was waiting for this to tie together in a satisfying way, but it never happened. Think they were shooting for film noir M Knight hybrid but not even sure anymore after the ending.

No it's not without it's flaws but overall I didn't feel like it was a waste of time watching it and I did think it succeeded on most parts.

I've heard people talk about this movie as very weird and not understanding what it was about but I thought they did very well at wrapping lose ends together in the end and explaining the "weird" elements, even though you kind of have to tie the points together yourself.

Maybe some people simply forgot to put the subtitles on and was lost because of that (40% of it is in Spanish).

And the acting was good overall with Ana De Armas and Keanu Reeves in the leads, both who also did KNOCK KNOCK together, they get to showcase a little more acting range here though. Rapper Big Daddy Kane has a fairly big supporting role as a crimeboss and he's not too bad either.

It should be noted though that there might be a director's cut coming out at some point because the studio decided that in order to sell it as a Keanu Reeves vehicle (who was only originally meant to be a supporting role) remove chunks of Ana De Armas and the Latino family's scenes and make it more thriller based where as the original intent was always drama.

It still has plenty of that and I still think it works but I can imagine that the DC might be better (and more of a crowd pleaser).

But it made the director so angry at the studio that he asked to have him credited under a pseudonym.

Should also be noted though I suppose that sometimes the director doesn't know best in these cases either, for instance Tony Kaye had infamous fights with Edward Norton regarding the cut of American HISTORY X and that still turned out to be pretty good (not comparing the 2 quality-wise though just making a point).

Now I should be noted to just shut up and let you decide if you want to watch it or not.

So as I was about to post this review, I noticed on the trivia page notes on exactly what went wrong with this film, cause something did go terribly wrong on this one, terribly wrong.

The movie felt like one or two different movies, intertwined together really badly. The whole thing was all over the place with no real focus.

It's really sad because the acting in the movie was really good and I love how the filmmakers placed the movie in the Inwood section of Manhattan. I recognize the area and it made the movie feel so real. Like with the characters going naturally back and forth from Spanish to English, it fells like Dominican New York. Not only that, but the cinematography and the sound design really helps to put you right there on the streets. From the sounds of the buses and cars going by to parts where it was cloudy and raining. I really felt I was on those streets and not in a theater.

Plus Big Daddy Kane makes a rare acting appearance. How can this movie not be solid gold?

Well apparently it was not enough for the studios to have Keenu Reeves on the poster to sell tickets, they had to re-edit the movie to make sure he was more the star of the pic, and this puts everything off, because you still realize that Reeves' role as a detective trying to solve his crooked partner's murder is a small piece of a movie about a a young devoted catholic living with her husband's family while he's overseas, trying to wrap her head around deeply distributing issues that are triggered by her own connection to the this cop's murder.

So I herd that there is a director's cut of the movie. If that cut every comes to light, I would want to see what the filmmaker really was trying to do, but do not waste your time seeing this cut.