The sweeping opening on a New Year’s Eve in Baltimore goes straight to the heart of American darkness. A sniper is picking off targets with deadly precision and they fall silently: on a rooftop bar, in a lift, a hot tub, mid-celebration and in the midst of life. You could almost miss the victims falling among the noise and revelry. By the end of the night, 29 are dead and the killer has blown up his sniper’s nest, destroying any leads.
Now the game of cat and mouse begins. At the FBI briefing, the man running the show, agent Geoffrey Lammark (Ben Mendelsohn) is the tough guy in the room, ready to inspire the troops. Lammark talks a big game. “He doesn’t want to be found. We’re going to disappoint him,” he says.
A young policewoman catches his eye – not in that way, his husband is at home – because she shows insight into the way the killer works. Eleanor Falco (Shailene Woodley) tells him the sniper killed for relief, it was spontaneous, and he will do it again. She has a troubled background involving drugs, a failed attempt to join the FBI (“what didn’t I take?”, she said in answer to the drug question) and a history of self-harm. A Clarice Starling in the making.
“Evil is cutting of a bird’s wing to see what happens; this guy was swatting mosquitoes,” she says. Lammark seconds her to his side in the FBI where she coordinates the different arms of law and order, all of them chasing the killer but with their own competing agendas.
Then the killer strikes again. This time, after an incident collecting left-over salad from a food court in a mall. Another 25 go down but we know he is a vegetarian.
At around this point, the film’s structure starts to wobble as it tries to decide what it wants to be. It could be a takedown of the criminal folly of inter-departmental rivalries and the cynical way in which public opinion takes precedence over results. I mean, this is Baltimore; didn’t they watch The Wire? At other times it’s about clever sleuthing and good detective work. Or it could be about a damaged person seeking redemption. One or two of these done well, with a sensible script, might have worked.
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The final scenes drip with cheap psychology as Eleanor works to establish rapport with the killer. By the time the credits roll, it is all too preposterous to dwell on. Woodley, an executive producer, hits all her marks but Australia’s Mendelsohn, an actor you can usually rely on, never finds his rhythm in a role he can’t quite fathom.
An additional annoyance was the upside-down camera work used in the opening sequence and which returned, nauseatingly, when Eleanor takes a long swim. Like the rest of the movie, it strives hard for effect without finding its feet.
To Catch a Killer is in cinemas now
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