The trailers definitely suggest a mixture of the two. The wintry setting and tension of Let The Right One In, and the mystery murder aspect from Tinker Tailor.
Also, it had a pretty impressive cast.
So I went into this with pretty good expectations. I've liked Alfredsson previous works, Michael Fassbender is a safe pair of hands, I'm liking what Rebecca Ferguson is doing with her casting choices and the Jo Nesbo book series that is film is based on are doing rather well.
I have to cut the chase and say that this was pretty messy. While the story on its own was solid at best and perfectly fine to follow. The editing went off into some strange tangents. It's as if they were trying to make it as confusing as possible on purpose.
It started with some potential. The slow pacing did not help it as the content was not that exciting. It did have its moments of tension, action and gruesome imagery. But the more awkward editing moments it had, the more I was getting frustrated by it. When we got to the main showdown, the finale felt really weak. While on the face of it, the ending seems poetic. But everything that happened was just a big coincidence and then wrapped itself up too quickly.
There were not many performances that stood out. Rebecca Ferguson was probably the best of the bunch. She looked the most committed to her character and you can see some passion and therefore create some investment in her development. While Michael Fassbender was fine, it looked as if he was just strolling through this one and not getting out of first gear.
J.K. Simmons and Toby Jones were such a waste in this one. For people of that calibre to be given such small and irrelevant roles is just insulting. I have no idea why an almost unrecognisable Val Kilmer was in this. He looked like one of those CGI characters like from 'Tron: Legacy' and 'Rogue One'.
Lots of problems with it. But I think its biggest flaw was its bad editing and therefore bad story-telling. Similar murder mystery stories from Scandanavia have done well as a TV series. So this sort of source material has been made into a success in the past. So why has it been made into a bit of a mess with some great film-makers? Something must have really gone wrong in post production.
For a film that's supposed to be a murder mystery with a dark subject matter, it never managed to grip me and not get that much investment.
This could very well be my most disappointed film of the year. The whole build-up and viewing experience reminded me of seeing The Girl On The Train this time last year. High expectations, got lots going for it and yet ends up being a bit of a mess and just wasted an opportunity of what could have been.
But there are some solid performances in there, it is nice to look at and you can see the potential. What a shame.
Rating: 6/10
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