La sombra del crimen

I read the bad reviews only after I started watching the movie but decided to continue with it. It was not all that bad - the development of the story and acting was ok for me to continue on with some forwarding. Then halfway through the series of murders became an unbelievable roller coaster of events. It was a surprising turn of events but felt artificially induced to keep the story interesting. The ending was really hurried and a turn off and not well thought through. Kind of one of those lazy endings to quickly wrap things up. All in all not too bad a movie to watch with some interesting characters just to kill time.

Cole Hauser and Morgan Freeman are both talented actors who should have run from this movie. Their performances are fine, but good lord. The writing starts off okay (at best) but becomes an absolute farce by the end. It's as though a capable writer began a screenplay and then died halfway through, only to have a drunk junior high student finish it.

If you make the mistake of watching this, you will be grateful when a murder happens. It terminates a performance that might have been decent (per the writing), but was very much not decent in reality.

I've rarely watched a movie where I was rooting for the entire cast to be killed just so it would end.

It started out really good then became disappointing, a few twists brought it back to life, but then some poor acting on the lesser actors made it goofy.. It started to turn into Mayberry with murders. It seemed like a serious show that turned into a side gig comedy. The stunts were of poor quality and laughable. The ending for me was totally lame, uneventful and anti-climactic. It could have been a really great movie and Morgan Freeman & Cole Hauser did well. I hope that someone remakes this movie using better writers than these. So glad I didn't pay theatre prices to see this unexceptional film.

Why Morgan Freeman put his name to this, I will never know. He was barely in it but when he was, there was a distinct lack of effort.

It was doing ok but as soon as it started to get bad, it went downhill fast. From half way through, it felt like something that lost investment and interest from those producing it, and those acting it. Almost like from half way, they'd all got a bit fed up and decided to hurry it along so they could go and get on with their day jobs.

Some of the acting was awful. The character who worked in the kitchen, had me checking online to see if it was a comedy. His acting was dire and he felt like a children's film baddie. I couldn't bring myself to watch the last 10 minutes.

I watched it on a plane where I didn't have access to IMDB, otherwise I'd probably wouldn't. But I liked the trailer. This a classic B class cinema with beginner actors learning the ropes on how to deliver their lines (apart for Freeman). I refuse to believe majority of staff had any acting experience. The dialogs are cliche and spoken without conviction. It reminded me the "straight to "VHS" 1990 movies at times. But I feel the actors were let down by both the writer and director who allowed for the likes of "you don't mess with old Berta" being said over and over. It's hilariously bad at times.

However - criticism aside, I liked the fast pace and the guesswork what's gonna happen next. It was a bit of "Knives Out" style with unveiling mystery. If you're looking for an easy to follow thriller with hot actress and twists, go for it. It now makes me want to shoot a movie myself, clearly you don't need any acting or directing abilities whatsoever if you have the funding from the studio.