Damaged
Damaged
Damaged: At their best, at least, the audience has been treated to a walloping dose of gore in many of the countless gruesome serial killer films that emerged in the imitator bandwagon to “Se7en” thirty years back. However, good suspense and atmosphere and new narrative concepts seem much harder to come by. This is definitely the case with “Damaged,” which serves up in dozens the victims’ severed limbs, yet there is likely to be little in terms of scars, or any kind of impression to be etched upon the viewer.
Leading this low-budget horror film starring Samuel L. Jackson and Vincent Cassel, but biased to Gianni Capaldi (who also co-wrote produced) as the motive Edinburgh police officer turning investigator six years after the criminal Chicago man – who appears to be the one he is hunting down.
Such unevenness is also displayed in character relations, quite often, the multi-layered plot is forced to make such choices not because it makes sense, but because someone’s name sells.
It is edited by the TV series veteran Terry McDonough directing in the competent style, this decent film quite a disparity effectively navigates between the mediocre, the shocking, and the queer. The Lionsgate company will put it in US cinemas and to digital and on-demand platforms on April 12.
Straight away, a shocking physical assault is second hand witnessed through a partially opened door to a delivery woman, by a pale skinned Scottish woman. The circumstances under which her body is finally recovered- her limbs extended outwards in a sick satanic inverted cross, piecemeal with other such items, headless wreath of shames, and a upper ‘headless’ cyclops torso are too familiar to those of five others murdered in cold blood, a murder that remains unsolved to this day, in Chicago.
When a second woman meets the same fate, local investigators Boyd (Capaldi) and Kessler (Kate Dickie) are joined by Yank cop Lawson (Jackson), who had handled those now cold cases. He also summons over his old mate Bravo (Vincent Cassel), who conveniently for the script has relocated to the UK.
Quite naturally, Mc Ambrosini’s prime suspect, a bitter elderly flatmate (Brian McCardie) who was hostile towards the first fresh cause suffers anger, becomes such a victim’s killer. This is followed by an even more repugnant McGregor (John Hannah), who was another violent member, this time too violently extreme (although vaguely defined) leading to his expulsion from an already extreme religious cult. Others also fail to reassure, like some of the investigators, even Lawson who stands out as an unrepentant inebriated Sot, has A reason.
The problem is not baroque as Koji Steven Sakai, Capaldi and Paul Aniello manages, implementing professionally but in borderline way easiest explanation of every issue presented: the narrative arises out of clash of two ideas and then from such overcluttered forming and feel somewhat unnatural transnational casting.
These factors make Baldessari’s performance of vaulted banals interesting, if disintegrated and geographically misplaced from the film itself. Jackson would seem to enjoy himself in the beginning, however, by the end of his character’s practice he is shown too much dubious narrative frame that he cares to treat with any levity. That said, Cassel and particularly Dickie’s talents feel largely wasted, while the background bad guys leave you feeling slightly intimidated but are deftly skirted in the scripts development.
Arguments even of the religious aspects of the story turn out to be straw arguments. One of the reasons why the anxiety levels built in anticipation of the murder also does not appear and remains very low is that the number of persons killed is addressed only to kill them off — the film is less concerned by their danger than by dwelling on the bloody consequences.
In the past one decade or so, McDonough has managed to pull at least several high quality series oeuvres both in America and Britain, “Better call Saul”, “Breaking Bad”, “The Street” inclusive. Professionalism gets the lustrous benefit of this long overdue first cinema effort dirt because of his overqualified actors.
But this brashness is by no means supported by the screenplay, whose pieces of dictionary are just assembled cursorily from similar characteristics in better films of the same type, and which eventually becomes a mess of contorted plotting, which has no precision while focusing on its paying customers’ brains.
All appropriate and aesthetically pleasing all the technology and design departments “Damaged” is too promising to be mediocre or even obviously bad – although after some time the audience may be inclined to start looking at the screen till the end for more excitement.
However, the general lack of intensity reduces what should be disturbing and even dark content to a great extent into a forgettable waste of time.
Watch free movies like Damaged on Fmovies
