It may have the most generic-sounding title, but mystery crime thriller To Catch a Killer looks like a solid movie option for anyone who has been craving something in the Silence of the Lambs mould – where it falls to one young, emotionally scarred woman to bring in a disturbed serial killer. This despite nearly everyone doubting and dismissing her.
In this case, the young woman in question is Eleanor Falco (Divergent’s Shailene Woodley), a talented but troubled police officer in Baltimore. Having failed her psyche evaluation when she applied to join the FBI, her profile nonetheless makes her the ideal candidate to find and stop a completely unpredictable sniper. Her unique skills are recognised by the FBI’s chief investigator (Captain Marvel and Rogue One’s Ben Mendelsohn), and Eleanor is recruited in a bid to stop the killer before their body count climbs even higher. Rounding out the cast is familiar face Jovan Adepo (Babylon, Overlord) as a fellow FBI agent.
To Catch a Killer is notable as the English language debut of Argentinian filmmaker Damián Szifron, who also co-wrote and produced the film. Szifron comes with some considerable behind-the-camera pedigree as he created Los Simuladores, the most successful TV series in the history of Argentina, and made Oscar nominated Wild Tales, which competed in the Academy Awards’ Foreign Language category in early 2015. With Szifron behind the camera, To Catch a Killer promises to be moody, stylish and engrossing.
To Catch a Killer released in the US last Friday, on 21 April, and immediately racked up some decent reviews (for the record, audiences have rated the movie higher than critics). Evidently, the film doesn’t tread new ground, but it’s elevated by its performances, and unflinching look at gun violence in America. Variety’s review describes the film as “engrossing, sometimes exciting, yet never fully free from an overall sense of derivation. It’s the classic case of a movie good enough, with sufficiently strong talent onboard, that you wonder why it isn’t better — why a progress that firmly holds a viewer for two hours leaves so fleeting an impression afterward.”
To Catch a Killer opens in South African cinemas this holiday Thursday, 27 April.