FILMDead Man Down
(15) 110mins
★★★✩✩
IN A NUTSHELL
Danish director Niels Arden Oplev makes a worthy attempt to give some heart and character to a traditional revenge movie.
REVIEW
There's no particular desire to disguise the creative signatures of this movie.
Danish art-action director Niels Arden Oplev helmed The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and the female lead here, Noomi Rapace, was that eponymous Scandinavian inkee.
These appointments, at least, nudge this over-complex revenge movie up a notch or two on the evolutionary ladder. Oplev, in his US debut, ensures that between suspenseful action set pieces, a slow-burn two-hander emerges, captured with neo-arthouse flare.
Colin Farrell's Victor is not the meathead that he first appears to be in JH Wyman's genre-bending script, and Beatrice is certainly not the pitiable outcast her scarred face would suggest.
While they are always destined to end up in a third act steeped in action movie cliches, they at least make a stab at challenging convention with their off-kilter, mumblecore flirtations.
To evolve the character of Victor and his tentative relationship with cagey Beatrice, Oplev slackens the pace to give them time and room.
The pair have to break out from their own damaged souls to make a connection. In a neatly Hitchcockian metaphor, they are pseudo-voyeuristic high-rise neighbours who must reach across a gulf about 20 storeys high and 60 feet wide.
Between encounters, Victor is busy playing two gangs against each other to settle a score but his super-sophisticated approach (ridiculously A-Team for a humble Hungarian engineer) begins to crumble and his dual identity is likely to be exposed.
Beatrice finds herself beginning to care, which is the last thing Victor needs, except perhaps for his own reciprocal response.
Victor needs to stay focussed on his task. For his crime syndicate boss Alphonse (a classy Terrence Howard) is beginning to look closer to home for his tormentor and ambitious low-ranker Darcy (an eye-catching cameo from Dominic Cooper) is closer than he realises to unmasking his best friend.
Director and cast are keen to suggest this is a love story rather than an action flick.
The conflict of interest is evident on screen, never entirely satisfying fans of either genre but intelligent enough to keep everyone engaged.
While never quite hitting all its marks, and laden with groan-worthy plot twists, this is an ambitious stab at putting 3D characters at the heart of an explosive revenge movie.
