Brief Story Line
When a mass shooting happened on New Year's eve, police officer Eleanor (Shailene Woodley - Adrift, Snowden etc) was one of the first to arrive at the scene where she showed some quick thinking, though the suspect was never caught. Due to the severity of the case, the experienced FBI Agent Lammark (Ben Mendelsohn - Secret Invasion Mini Series, Spies in Disguise etc) was assigned to lead a task force. He then asked Eleanor to join even though she did not have any proper background and another experienced detective Jack Mackenzie (Jovan Adepo - Babylon, The Leftovers TV series etc).
The investigation was difficult as there were little clues but the three of them tried their best to come up with the way to solve and stop the crime before it happened again.
So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
One of the reasons for me to watch this during my flight was the limited options of Western movies that I had not seen. Plus the premise seemed interesting and I was familiar with the lead cast. It was also a nice way to kill time as it got duration of almost 2 hours. However, despite the movie's intense opening scene, the subsequent part was rather heavy with focus on the investigation and a bit of drama relating to the characters. Now I am not saying that it was boring but as I watched this in my second flight (after transit), I was very tired and it did make me very sleepy. Good thing I could rewind if I fell asleep during some of the scenes.
Anyway, this kind of movie was understandably slow burn and there were little action except one time after around two third of the film and towards the end. The investigation was the main focus in here which I thought was quite well done and Agent Lammark and Eleanor actually made an interesting team with their different characterization. I thought Ben Mendelsohn and Shailene Woodley (who gave a mature performance) were pretty impressive. Other than them and Jack, there was another important character, i.e. the killer himself played by Ralph Ineson (Gunpowder Milkshake, The Hurricane Heist etc) and few other cast in minor roles.
I was not familiar with the movie's director Damian Szifron but after reading more about him, it turned out he is a successful Argentinian film maker who created the very popular series Los Simuladores. He also served as the co-writer with Jonathan Wakeham. I did not see anything Based On in the opening & closing credit but I did see Shailene Woodley as one of the producers. One thing that I felt good was the sound effects, especially when I heard them on the headphone. So I guess this would be a positive side when seeing it in the theater (not that I plan on doing that cause this is the kind of film that just need to be seen once).
Overall this was an interesting enough crime drama movie with a bit of action if you are into such attributes. I was OK with the investigation part and the brief intense action scenes, though it was not the type of movie that would stay in my mind for a long time. I am thankful however that Emirates Airlines had a variety of movies including this one which gave me the chance to see it before its Indonesian release. So you can give the movie a try and maybe you would be entertained by it. But if you go into the theater expecting huge explosive actions, then you would not find them here.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars
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