Dark Crimes

Kids, you ever take a speech class in college?  Or maybe even in high school (where such a class likely belongs)?  I did.  Freshman year.  I hated it.  It was a waste of time, but it was a prerequisite for the college, so it was a Band-Aid that simply had to be ripped from the skin.  I learned nothing, save some facts about the aircraft that would eventually turn into the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, the subject of one of my speeches.  Hell, the highlight for me was being able to play parts of Tool’s “Stinkfist” video, and I can’t remember why I even did that.  Anyway, the class emphasized the importance of starting with an Attention Getter, something that was framed as essential, as it brought the audience’s attention to the speech.  In reality, what you need is something that not only snaps its fingers at people but also gets them interested in what you have to say.  But the class didn’t quite get this down, and it seems as though this is a problem elsewhere…

BOOM!  First thing we see in Dark Crimes?  Some good old-fashioned orgies and sexual violence, not unlike something out of the earlier scenes of Saló or something sleazy like the Ilsa films.  Alright, movie, where are we going with this.  You have my attention.  From there on, though, my attention wavered, my eyes favoring the insides of their lids over whatever garbage was on the screen.

So, the plot here, based on an article by David Gann (hence the original title, True Crimes), involves a Polish detective trying to solve a murder from a little while back by investigating the author of a crime novel, whose use of suspiciously specific details seemingly implicates him in the crime.  That’s the easy part.  The hard part is watching the plot unfold.

Suffice it to say, this thing is a goddamn SLOG.  I’ve heard the word used elsewhere to describe the film, and I can’t think of a more fitting term.  We’re lead on an overbearingly dark journey that doesn’t care if you understand what’s happening, doesn’t care if you care what’s happening, things are just gonna happen.  Deal with it.  The tone, pacing, editing, cinematography, and direction are all trying their utmost to communicate to us that this is a dark film, and fuck you if you’re able to climb out of the hole it digs for you.

Jim Carrey is the lead here, and, though he’s playing very much against type, he’s the one that looks the best.  I’m not entirely sold on the deep voice and vaguely Polish affectation he’s sporting, but otherwise he’s great in the role, showing just how broad his dramatic range truly is.  There’s no spastic motion, no voices, I’m not even sure he ever smiles, he’s just plying his trade with some admittedly quality results.  Similarly successful here is Charlotte Gainsbourg, but, like Carrey, her efforts are entirely wasted by a film that wants nothing to do with its audience.  The rest of the cast doesn’t hold up to the main pair’s example, with Martin Csokas, the author in question, trying waaaaay too hard to make himself insufferable and unlikable and Piotr Glowacki, acting as Carreys, um, partner? (my attention often waned, but I think that’s his role), is, like many of the other actors, painfully wooden and sleepwalking.

Visually, the film takes pains to make you understand that the subject matter is dark and dreary.  Cinematographer Michel Englert favors a washed-out, graying aesthetic, with some colors allowed to nonetheless blossom (there are some greens that just blaze, man), and I’d hazard to suggest that a solid monochrome might have been even more appropriate for the sleazy, noir-like atmosphere.  His framing is impeccable throughout, and his work, alongside Carrey’s, deserves the most acclaim here.  Sadly, just about everyone else is suspect.  Writer Jeremy Brock, who previously brought us The Last King of Scotland, seems to be reverting to his The Eagle ways, crafting a ponderous and muddy thriller that doesn’t live up to the genre’s name.  Worse, he also tosses in some of that horrid exposition-heavy dialogue early on, the crutch of hacks who don’t know how to otherwise communicate their ideas.  Speaking of, the novel that gets so much attention in the film is horrifically hacky, bordering on straight-up pretentious (a term I don’t like to bandy about too freely), not unlike the dialogue and acting attached to the novel’s fake-deep author.  If only we didn’t have to hear so much of it read to us…  I’m not too familiar with director Alexandros Avranas’s previous works, but he doesn’t instill much confidence here, with a lackluster direction that wastes the talents of the actors and DP and exacerbates the script’s many shortcomings.

Thing is, it often feels like pieces of the film are just plain missing.  For all I know, this film is just another in a long line of studio-tampered releases that saw chunks of sense-making taken out for God-knows-what-reason, or maybe the editor just didn’t quite know what she was doing, but little makes sense.  Studio meddling would potentially explain why a film released two years ago in Europe got one of the quietest limited releases Stateside I have ever seen and a focus on the video release (including a fresh trailer, no less), but I’m just not sure.

What I am sure of is that this film doesn’t work at all.  Whatever good things can be found are swallowed whole by the bad, a work of visualized vore I just didn’t need to see.  Everything is too dark, too overbearing, too ponderous to work, and I feel bad for Jim Carrey, who’s trying hard to do something outside of his comfort zone.  His performance is likely the only reason people are considering seeing this, but it’s not worth going to the theatre to see it, if that’s even possible for you.  If you’re gonna see this, wait ’til it’s free, and make sure you’ve got some liquid companionship to help you through it.  I wish I did…