Darkness Falls

How many times would you find it credible that angry, determined people--particularly trained police officers--would lose control of their guns simply because somebody reached over and grabbed it from them? Well, you're about to find out, if you watch this stupid thriller in which that is the single most unintentionally funny element. It's a suspense-free serial killer drama with the entire focus on Shawn Ashmore's cop, whose wife is a victim at the begnning.

Every step of his revenge is as predictable as it is hackneyed, made worse by the fact that Ashmore just doesn't have the gravitas for this kind of part. Other performances are adequate (Gary Cole is effective enough as the main villain), but the writing is witless and the direction takes it all waaaaay too seriously. It's not a good movie, and despite what some others have said, I didn't find it "so bad it's good"--though yes, those "dang the bad guy got my gun again" moments did make me laugh out loud. But the rest is just mediocre genre trash, without any eccentric ideas or style to make it interesting.

Good to see the venerable Gary Cole doing his stuff again but even he fails to raise this rather pedestrian movie with overblown soundtrack and some truly dismal acting above a mediocre 4/10 and that is being generous.

If you are in Covid lockdown with nothing to do it will suffice as a wet Sunday afternoon diversion but there is nothing new here, it is a bit like an episode of CSI or any other cop show on tv.

With a cast of this calibre I really can't understand why a movie would turn out this badly. I think the script and plot just wasn't strong enough. The plot seemed ridiculous, shallow and unrealistic. Maybe it was trying to be something 'different and original' but failing miserably.

The whole thing is a cringy epic fail.

I am a tad puzzled by low scores, giving it one or two stars is simply not fair. The movie is more than competently made, some good camera work, decent acting and enthusiastic score. Granted, it does have shortcomings, holes in the story line, slips here and there, but it never feels unwatchable. Eve more so, I find it to be perfect for late night watching that does not require full attention. Solid 5/10 and, as a top 1K, I stick to it.

I thought I was in for a good movie as this started out really well. The way the serial killers plotted out their murders to be a close to perfect crime was a great premise. The cold reality of it reminded me of "Henry: Portrait of a serial killer". Then the movie sinks faster than a rock in a lake. As soon as the detective went into "think like the killers" mode, it got stupid. Then he makes so many bad decisions that don't make sense, which ends up getting more innocent people killed. This movie could have been good, but the writer got in the way with some unplausible stupid ideas. The ending was just as bad and didn't make sense. The big emotional moment in the end was meaningless. This is a good example of how NOT to make a movie. Pure stupidity.