Review: To Catch A Killer

 

Eleanor (Shailene Woodley) is a police officer in Baltimore who is on the scene when a gunman murders dozens of people on New Years Eve. When the FBI's chief investigator, Lammarck (Ben Mendelsohn) takes over the case, he sees Eleanor's potential despite her lack of credentials and makes her his liaison to the Baltimore PD. Along with Special Agent Mackenzie (Jovan Adepo) they work together to catch a killer.

The opening scene in this film is straight up horror. With the insane rate of mass shootings in the U.S, I found a lot of what is shown in this film very hard to watch because it seems so plausible. I can see this being a bit of a hard sell because of that, but what I found with To Catch A Killer was a very riveting thriller with characters I very much cared about.

One thing this film touches on is the inter-department competitiveness that happens in investigations. It's a fresh viewpoint that you don't often seen in movies that are operating with under 2 hours of runtime. Lammarck is constantly at a battle with this. While he wants to focus on his case, he accepts that sometimes he has to follow other leads (and the one they end up dealing with this in film....yikes.) That's something Eleanor hasn't had to experience as much as a beat cop.

Speaking of Eleanor, she's a true underdog and that makes her easy to watch. She couldn't afford to go to college, she struggled with addiction and depression, but got help and got a job to pay the bills. To see her talent be recognized even though she didn't have a degree is nice to see on screen. A lot of talented people are in that pool and Eleanor had a lot of people pushing against her. Lammarck and Mackenzie never judge, and the three of them work well together.

Woodley gives a great performance. She's always been good at handling complex roles. Mendelsohn and Adepo might not get as big of dramatic moments as she does but they're very good as well. I just enjoy all these of these actors immensely. I'm glad to see Adepo in something so soon after his wonderful performance in Babylon.

Director Damián Szifron might not reinvent the wheel with crime thrillers, but if you've seen his previous film Wild Tales you know he's great behind the camera. I wasn't expecting much from this considering I hadn't seen any advertising for it, but To Catch a Killer is a solid crime drama with an excellent cast.  

Grade: B+