'Interchange' is a Malaysian/Indonesian co-production set in an anonymous Malaysian city (it's actually Kuala Lumpur, but speaking at the 2016 London Film Festival director Dain Iskandar Said said he did not want to closely identify any particular city in the film). Detective Man is the stereotypical worldly-wise, maverick, rule-breaking etc police officer who is confronted with a series of bizarre murders: the victims are drained of blood, their bodies left suspended in a mesh of their own empty veins. Also left at every scene are smashed decades-old photographic glass negatives of a tribe from Borneo, so Man calls in Adam, formerly a forensics photographer who found it all a bit too much and now contents himself taking photographs of his unknowing neighbours.
As with many thrillers of its type, I feel 'Interchange' could have done with more work, or certainly better editing of the script: for instance, the viewer never discovers why Adam swoons every time he sees one of those glass negatives. And it seems the script was beyond the technical capabilities available to the film-makers: the vein meshes in which the corpses are suspended have a definite 'stuck on' look about them, and the bird creature at the end simply looks like a bloke in a fancy-dress costume. I also found distracting the cast's habit of switching back and forth - sometimes in the same sentence - between Malay and English, although that may be common in Malaysia.
However, to a viewer in the West a thriller set in Malaysia is unusual, and whereas female members of the cast are a bit obvious in their vamping, Iedil Putra as Adam makes a pleasingly non-macho hero. The ultimate solution to the murders is pretty good, too. So this film is certainly worth watching at least once.
As with many thrillers of its type, I feel 'Interchange' could have done with more work, or certainly better editing of the script: for instance, the viewer never discovers why Adam swoons every time he sees one of those glass negatives. And it seems the script was beyond the technical capabilities available to the film-makers: the vein meshes in which the corpses are suspended have a definite 'stuck on' look about them, and the bird creature at the end simply looks like a bloke in a fancy-dress costume. I also found distracting the cast's habit of switching back and forth - sometimes in the same sentence - between Malay and English, although that may be common in Malaysia.
However, to a viewer in the West a thriller set in Malaysia is unusual, and whereas female members of the cast are a bit obvious in their vamping, Iedil Putra as Adam makes a pleasingly non-macho hero. The ultimate solution to the murders is pretty good, too. So this film is certainly worth watching at least once.
