You don’t often see three Oscar winners starring in the same film.
Too bad they’re so ill-served by this inept crime drama.
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| Looking to show off in front of visiting veteran detective Joe "Deke" Deacon (Denzel Washington, center rear), homicide Det. Jim Baxter (Rami Malek) browbeats a junior officer, while Det. Jamie Estrada (Natalie Morales) watches nervously. |
In fairness, Hancock can be a talented director. He guided Sandra Bullock to an Academy Award in 2009’s The Blind Side, and I thoroughly enjoyed how he handled Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson, in 2019’s The Highwaymen.
But as a writer, he record is spotty at best; his best efforts are adaptations of existing books, as with The Blind Side and 1997’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. He certainly has no flair for concocting a psychological crime thriller such as this one, which repeatedly screams for the superior touch of a seasoned mystery author.
As Clint Eastwood’s Harry Callahan observes, in 1973’s Magnum Force, “A man’s got to know his limitations.”
Hancock obviously doesn’t.
The year is 1990, likely to avoid the intrusion of cell phones, social media and DNA evidence. Kern County Sheriff’s Deputy Joe “Deke” Deacon (Washington) is sent down to Los Angeles, for what should be a quick evidence-gathering assignment. He runs afoul of preppy L.A. County Sheriff’s Homicide Department Sgt. Jim Baxter (Malek), whose “college boy” condescension provokes little more than an amused smile from Deke.
Washington delivers it with quiet élan. Actually, pretty much everything Washington does, emerges with elegance and dignity.
Turns out Deke has “history” with this Los Angeles department, having departed under something of a cloud. (Hancock shares these details via maddeningly sparse and fleeting flashbacks, as the film proceeds.) Deke left behind a few friends — Det. Sal Rizoli (Chris Bauer), and L.A. coroner’s assistant Flo Dunigan (Michael Hyatt) — but most other department stalwarts were happy to see the back of him.
Baxter heads the task force charged with tracking down a serial killer who has been doing nasty things to attractive young women. Perhaps as a passive/aggressive means of showing up the old-timer, Baxter invites Deke along to a fresh crime scene, where the newest victim has just been discovered. This ploy fails, forcing Baxter to reluctantly admire Deke’s methodical analysis and careful eye for “the little things.”
The two men begin an initially prickly — but soon mutually respectful — partnership.
Because, as it turns out, the details of this current murder spree have uncanny similarities to the equally morbid serial killer case that Deke obsessively pursued, back in the day: to the cost of his health, his marriage and his job.
Up to this point, Hancock’s film is on firm ground. Washington and Malek develop a solid dynamic, built primarily from brief conversations taking place during the grinding process of crime scene analysis, cross-checking old data, and chasing down slim leads. Baxter can’t help admiring Deke’s tenacity and shrewd instincts; Deke warily recognizes that the happily married Baxter is in similar danger of losing himself in his job.
We learn more about Deke via brief encounters with his ex-wife (Judith Scott) and Flo, with whom he shares some (as yet undisclosed) significant connection. Washington plays these scenes impeccably, with unspoken pain and regret in his gaze; we can’t help admiring the man, and aching over whatever-the-heck went wrong.
We’re also mildly invested in Natalie Morales, a captivating presence as Det. Jamie Estrada, part of Baxter’s team. Too bad she never emerges from the background.
Deke soon chances upon a potential suspect: skeevy appliance repairman Albert Sparma (Jared Leto, so memorable in 2013’s Dallas Buyers Club). At this point, Hancock’s film begins its inexorable slide into lunacy. He’s clearly trying for the über-creepy, cat-and-mouse suspense that Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt and Kevin Spacey generated, in 1995’s Se7en … but doesn’t get within shouting distance.
Deke and Baxter are convinced this is The Guy, particularly since Leto (over)plays him as such a spooky, eyes-just-this-side-of-madness oddball. Sparma loves the attention, making himself look as guilty as possible, while revealing absolutely nothing. Although Leto’s performance initially seems beguiling and tantalizing, Sparma’s condescending smugness quickly becomes tiresome.
Nor do Deke and Baxter’s increasingly agitated antics — in their efforts to dig up proof — seem within character.
Even at this point — Washington and Malek having built up considerable good will — we hope that Hancock can somehow salvage what is becoming an increasingly contrived mess.
It’s not to be.
At the 95-minute mark, this story takes a blindingly stupid, jump-the-shark shift that would have had patrons jeering in noisy disgust, were this a shared movie theater experience.
Truly: one of the worst, most imbecilic plot contrivances I’ve ever had the displeasure to endure.
“If we’d been in a theater,” muttered Constant Companion, at my side on the couch, “I’d have left. Right. At. That. Moment.”
Wise choice. Because things don’t improve; indeed, they get worse. Everything we previously admired about this story, and its characters, is dashed on the shoals of scripting incompetence.
This is one of those films that leaves a very bad taste, when the end credits finally roll.
Be smart. Give it a miss.
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