Joint writers and directors Hviid and Olholm gave us a beautifully shot film with excellent cinematography, but fell short in the screenplay, especially the ending that made it seem they ran out of money.
The conceptual story, although not original, was great, especially their parable about walking a mile in someone else's shoes. But the screenplay felt dragged out with too many unnecessary scenes, giving the 108 min runtime a feel of too much filler for the little substance it gave us. This film should've been cut down to about 80-90 mins max.
What really bothered me was the lack of some type of ending. I get that many thrillers will leave the ending up to the viewers imagination, but for the investment made following the characters around for 108 mins, and with more than one conflict needing some type of resolution, chopping the ending to, well, not really any ending, made it feel like they ran out of time and or/money. For that, I automatically took off one star.
The casting and performances were great, and the score was on point. So overall it was a decent one time watch, and I'd recommend it if you're a fan of this genre, but I wouldn't see it again. It's certainly no 10/10, but also not worthy of all the 1's from the wannabe critics - it was shot and directed too well, and that alone deserves at least a 4. So it's a 7/10 from me, but would've been at least an 8 if the writing was tighter with... a proper ending.
The conceptual story, although not original, was great, especially their parable about walking a mile in someone else's shoes. But the screenplay felt dragged out with too many unnecessary scenes, giving the 108 min runtime a feel of too much filler for the little substance it gave us. This film should've been cut down to about 80-90 mins max.
What really bothered me was the lack of some type of ending. I get that many thrillers will leave the ending up to the viewers imagination, but for the investment made following the characters around for 108 mins, and with more than one conflict needing some type of resolution, chopping the ending to, well, not really any ending, made it feel like they ran out of time and or/money. For that, I automatically took off one star.
The casting and performances were great, and the score was on point. So overall it was a decent one time watch, and I'd recommend it if you're a fan of this genre, but I wouldn't see it again. It's certainly no 10/10, but also not worthy of all the 1's from the wannabe critics - it was shot and directed too well, and that alone deserves at least a 4. So it's a 7/10 from me, but would've been at least an 8 if the writing was tighter with... a proper ending.