To Catch a Killer is pretty close to being as generic as its title, which should surprise those who are familiar with Argentinian filmmaker Damián Szifron. His last film, Wild Tales, is a ferocious satire told in six twisted, funny and relentless stories consisting of recognizable situations yet with outrageous outcomes. Though, somehow with this psychological thriller he co-wrote with Jonathan Wakeham – Szifron takes a fairly banal approach to it and is barely effective in what it wants to relay to the audience. It quickly falls into TV territory by coming across as a duplicate of the thousands of true crime shows out there, except with a bigger budget and better actors.
It’s New Years Eve in Baltimore and as the fireworks are bursting in the sky, there’s a mass murderer firing in the city killing close to thirty people – each getting one fatal bullet to the body. Police officer Eleanor (Shailene Woodley) is caught up in the chaos and is quickly enlisted by Geoffrey Lammark (Ben Mendelsohn), FBI’s chief investigator, to join him and agent Mackenzie (Jovan Adepo) in hunting down the shooter and bringing him to justice before he strikes again. The demons from Eleanor’s past are intended to be her secret ingredient into getting into the mind of a killer. I guess it takes one damaged soul to catch another.
However, the manhunt is more about the profiling, prejudice and politics involved than trying to understand the psyche of this misanthrope (the film’s original title). There’s an attempt, especially in the third act, to do so but it’s an unavailing one to put it mildly. As far as the mystery of who is terrorizing the city…this isn’t one of those with a twist and shocking reveal. The motive is also pretty typical for this kinda thing. To Catch a Killer does have Woodley and Mendelsohn delivering solid, believable performances, wearing their gallantry, apprehension and exhaustion on their sleeve. Unfortunately, they’re held prisoner by a shoddy script and a story that just fails to intrigue. It’s regularly scheduled programming that doesn’t stir in the slightest.
What becomes the ultimate undoing for Szifron and Wakeham is they appear to be in over their heads when addressing the themes of To Catch a Killer. The big one is mental health and gun control, which has been on all of our minds as of late. Random shootings taking innocent lives certainly strikes a nerve, yet the film doesn’t find it necessary to divulge any further than at surface level when examining a connection between trauma and the individual inflicting their hurt and causing such terrible tragedies. The ample opportunities to provide a fresh stance on such heavy topics is squandered, settling for a narrative that makes To Catch a Killer ineffectual and forgettable.
Brandon Vick is a member of The Music City Film Critics’ Association and the Southeastern Film Critics Association, the resident film critic of the SoBros Network, and the star of The Vick’s Flicks Podcast. Follow him on Twitter @SirBrandonV and be sure to search #VicksFlicks for all of his latest movie reviews.
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