We noticed “Damaged”, the thriller from Amazon Prime Video with Vincent Cassel and Samuel L. Jackson | EUROtoday
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VThis is a case that dangers remaining closed. Released Friday on Amazon Prime Video, Damaged proposes to convey collectively on display screen two greats of cinema, by casting Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction) and Vincent Cassel (Hate, whose twenty ninth anniversary is being celebrated this yr) on the coronary heart of a darkish police investigation.
Our two pals, skilled American cops with uneven profession paths – the primary stays within the police reluctantly, the opposite returns willy-nilly – discover themselves mobilized on a collection of murders within the Scottish capital, Edinburgh.
Small subtlety of the crime scenes: the our bodies of the victims (or what stays of them) are organized in such a approach as to kind sectarian, satanic symbols. And already the movie takes us again to our horrible reminiscences of the wonderful Sevin, by David Fincher, the place the killer acted below the seven lethal sins.
Of Sevin, this new function movie – which have to be seen with indulgence, as a result of it’s deliberate for a direct launch on a streaming platform – sadly solely has the plot. And even.
Because in nearly all different areas, it oscillates between common and really common. The excellent news, if there may be any, is that the method appears moderately assured. We then discover ourselves confronted with a kind of unpretentious TV movie which, regardless of quite a few inconsistencies, holds its place as trustworthy leisure. Stupid and imply.
Technically Damaged
From the primary minutes, we rapidly perceive that the sense of aesthetics might be missing. How is it that such an uncommon and chic setting because the very baroque Edinburgh is nearly hidden? The uncommon, extraordinarily broad plans of the Scottish metropolis look related. And provides the sensation of a manufacturing per kilometer, wherein the selection of decor has no different curiosity than that of the pockets. Damage !
This impression of unfinished enterprise may be discovered within the modifying, which is much too nervous and forces the repeated use of the “pause” or “backspace” buttons. Blame it on the stealth of sure plans. But additionally to their obscure composition, which can be made extra complicated by very frequent mild underexposure. The tile, after we attempt to observe an investigation.
An investigation additionally weakened by energy outages. In a context the place we must always really feel the strain from one finish to the opposite of the hour and a half that the movie lasts, we generally discover ourselves letting go.
We look away, we solely hear with one ear, or we don't hear in any respect. As if the director, Terry McDonough (breaking Bad, Better Call Saul)now not managed to hook us past the strict prison area.
A humble journey
Despite every little thing, we acknowledge that we generally naively enable ourselves to be carried away. When there may be motion. For the love of thrillers, maybe. Because the sectarian motive fascinates, certainly. Also as a result of this humble journey is embodied by well-known actors, even when they don’t seem to be on the prime of their artwork. But involved sufficient that we don't grind our tooth.
Special point out, as well as, to Gianni Capaldi (Cops Incrimination), who doesn’t deserve something, squeezed between our two headliners within the position of a Scottish policeman tortured by his personal demons. The trio, when collectively, works properly. Much much less when the characters are scattered, in tandem or solo. The three-way alchemy card might have been performed extra.
As for the ultimate twist, we received't reveal something about it right here. Let's simply say that it will have benefited from being extra finely performed. As all of the wrongs on the earth can’t be borne by the director, we’ll put the latter right down to a barely clumsy writing, which perpetuates the sensation of “meh” skilled throughout the movie.
Damaged embodies, in the end, the succession of “direct to DVD releases” of the 2000s, resurrected by Prime Video, Netflix and different Disney+. These movies which don’t cross by means of the cinema field as a result of they’re deemed insufficiently promising. And then landed on the cabinets of video golf equipment – in the present day, within the thematic ordering of the platforms.
It is a piece supposed extra for consumption than for appreciation, which however affords the posh of getting two giant calibers on show. An actual Sunday movie, when there may be nothing else…
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