Certification. 15
Running Time. 1 hour 38 mins
Director. David Raymond
Cast. Henry Cavill, Alexandra Daddario, Brendan Fletcher, Ben Kingsley, Stanley Tucci.
Rating. 48%
Review.
Consider, if you will, the greatest serial killer films of all time; the list would surely include the likes of Psycho (1960), Badlands (1973), Halloween (1978), Manhunter (1986), Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer (1986), Silence Of The Lambs (1991), Man Bites Dog (1992), Natural Born Killers (1994), Se7en (1995), Memories Of Murder (2003) and Zodiac (2007). But not too many examples spring to mind from the past twenty years.
Perhaps the problem is that the extrapolated, procedural, slow-burn nature of a serial killer investigation is better suited to the small screen. Television shows such as Mindhunter, True Detective and Criminal Minds have the luxury of time to develop the drip-drip narratives and characters' back stories.
Exhibit A: David Raymond's debut feature, Night Hunter. The writer and director assembled an impressive ensemble cast, but the film needed an extra 20 minutes of run time to help fill in the gaps in some of the backstories that are sadly missing. For example, there is clearly history between several of the main characters, but we're not told what this is and the plot suffers because of this.
Henry Cavill gives an emotionless, one-note, unengaging performance as Detective Walter Marshall. The film itself is overly serious and an inconsistent, clunky script with regular plot holes only serves to highlight character behaviour that is beyond belief. For example, the Police Department's psychological profiler, Rachel (Alexandro Daddario) initially seems like a strong and competent professional, but at one point mid-interrogation, she resorts to a strip tease to unnerve a suspect. Equally, by the book Commissioner Harper (Stanley Tucci) instructs Marshall to kill a suspect rather than bring him in alive, which seems jarringly out of character.
Raymond serves up a third-act twist that briefly threatens to spark the film to life, before it fizzles out in a more hackneyed and predictable fashion.
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