To Catch A Killer

2023   Vertical Entertainment

Rated:  R

Length:  1 hr  59min

Action ~ Crime ~ Drama ~ Mystery ~ Thriller

Directed by:  Damián Szifron

Starring:  Shailene Woodley, Ben Mendelsohn, Jovan Adepo and Ralph Ineson.

“I’d rather be hated for who I am, than be loved for what I’m not”

Baltimore….New Year’s Eve…….a gunman kills 29 people sniper style. Eleanor Falco (Shailene Woodley) is a Baltimore Police Officer and responds to the scene. FBI Special Agent Lammark (Ben Mendelsohn) is chosen to lead the investigation into the mass murder. The next morning as he addresses the Police Department he happens to overhear Officer Falco and another officer talking about him and is surprised by what she said in response. He questions her about her comments and is surprised by her answers. Impressed with her he decides that he needs her on his special team and requests that she be allowed to be the liaison between him and the Police Department.

As they work together to track down the killer, Agent Lammark realizes that Officer Falco is a very bright and perceptive individual. Looking at her record he surmises that she is also very deeply disturbed and haunted by something in her past. And she might just be the only person that could get inside the head of the man they are searching for. Kind of like a modern day Clarice Starling from Silence Of The Lambs. They work together to hunt down the mass murderer with no clues and Officer Falco’s intuition, while they fight the bureaucratic need for a quick resolution to the city’s nightmarish scenario.

The Director Damián Szifron is a very successful Argentinian Film Director and he co-wrote this movie with Jonathon Wakeham. It is his first foray onto American Films with Vertical Entertainment picking up the movie in 2022 and changing the name from Misanthrope to To Catch A Killer. Shailene Woodley does an excellent job in this movie. I loved her character and the way she played the role. All the way through right up until the end, I was rooting for Shailene and Eleanor Falco. I am a Shailene Woodley fan, there is something different about her, the way she acts and approaches her roles.

Killer Heat was the most recent movie I saw and reviewed with her in it, liked her in that as well. HBO’s Big Little Lies was another good one she was in, as well as the Divergent series. Ben Mendelsohn also did a good job in this movie as The FBI lead man. I think they were both at the top of their game in this one. I loved the storyline as well. A mass murder with no clues, Officer Falco’s tortured psyche and intuition, the battle to find the murderer and the truth while trying to keep the bureaucrats at bay. The movie kind of flew under the radar before it landed on Netflix yesterday and is already Number one on The Netflix Top Ten Movies List.

I enjoyed it and I would watch it again……

And Yes….I recommend it.