classicsoncall Review of Solace

Solace (II) (2015)

"You see, he's just like me. He sees things, only he's better at it, a whole lot better."

[8/10 · 18 November 2022]

Interesting concept for a serial murder mystery. The plot becomes provocative when Charles Ambrose (Colin Farrell) unexpectedly faces Dr. John Clancy (Anthony Hopkins) and explains his motivation for killing people with either a known or yet undetected fatal disease. But the bigger twist occurs later when Ambrose reveals he's dying too, and wants Clancy to be his successor in the mercy killing business. The kicker to all this is that both men have psychic abilities, with Ambrose one step ahead of Clancy at nearly every turn. If the filmmakers hadn't inserted a mid film scene of Clancy at his dying daughter's bedside, it would have made the closing scene a bit more shocking. Disparate elements introduced in the story like the frogs and the Atticus newsstand eventually come together, with competing but not necessarily accurate visions of future events creating the tension that propel it forward. I thought this was a good one, certainly better than the current 6.4 IMDb rating it has currently has (as I write this). Farrell made his character sound almost reasonable, and Hopkins, well, what can you say? His understated performance carried a stern gravitas throughout the entire picture.