On the one hand I have to respect the movie for trying but on the other, it ultimately never succeeds at what it's trying to achieve and I also really can't call it a great movie.
This feels like a good movie, this looks like a good movie but yet it never works out as one as well. The main reason for this is very simple; the story isn't handled in the best or most interesting way. It actually often becomes a messy and needlessly convoluted movie, which really doesn't make this the most pleasant movie to watch either.
The problem with the story is that it's lacking focus. This isn't just necessarily due to the story itself but also really because of the way how things get build- and set up, or rather said, how certain things don't get set up at all, or at least not very effectively. There is lacking a certain goal so to speak and too often I was wondering to myself what I was watching exactly and what was going on. There were moments that I lost track of the movie, when I just didn't knew anymore what the main character of the movie was trying to do and who he was after now and why again exactly.
It's really because of the way how the movie gets told. It makes the choice to only tell- and reveal certain things to you, at only certain spots and times. Most of the time the movie asks of you to put things together for yourself, which is fine, as long as the movie is giving you enough pieces for you to puzzle together but that too often however isn't the case for this movie. Certain things that really needed to get told and given to you by the movie, in order to understand a certain plot line, development or a character's motivation, are sorely missing from the movie at parts.Partly because of this, the main character of the movie also isn't always working out too well. It could have worked out as an interesting character study, in which nothing is black and white or purely good or evil but too often you just don't know what's going on in the character's head and what drives him. It's therefore also hard at parts to care for the character and to get fully behind him. He really isn't a likable or interesting enough main character.
This also is partly due to the casting of David Morse as the movie its main character. Now, nothing wrong with David Morse or his acting but he just is the type of guy you get to play a supporting character, or a full blown villain. He just isn't a likable or sympathetic enough main, 'tough' cop, character for this movie. I certainly wasn't ever rooting for him.
The movie tries to walk a fine line between what's considered to be morally right and wrong. It however also more than ones crosses the line in my opinion. Sometimes the movie pushes things too far and I wasn't liking all of the developments and directions the movie was going in. The movie tries very hard to be subtle but at times it's just anything but subtle with its story really. It certainly goes at the expense of the movie its credibility and I also definitely wouldn't call this a very realistic or effective cop thriller.
It's never a terrible movie to watch but it isn't exactly a very effective or memorable one either.
5/10
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