El silencio de la ciudad blanca

Well, I already knew the story, because I read the book recently. Sure, the expectations were high.

I tried to ignore the bad reviews, and watched the movie anyway. Well, they are right. The thing is, I don't understand why they didn't do a TV series, like they did with the book of Joël Dicker, " The Harry Quebert's Affair".

If you didn't read the book, you will find the movie just a mediocre thriller. But for someone like me who read the book, he or she will be really disappointed. The identity of the killer is revealed too soon in the movie, and I couldn't find any interest for that decision.

And if we analyze the acting, it is really poor. The choice of the two main characters is bad. Sure, you can make some changes when you adapt a book to the screen, but there are some important things, some characteristics, that were not respected! It seems to me that they wanted to use the success of the book to make a movie, but the result is not good!!!

If I were the writer of the book, I think I would be mad but mostly disappointed.

35 minutes into the film the audience is told who the serial killer is. And I mean us, the viewers, not through the main character or the investigation, only us, we're told for no reason, no purpose, and no benefit. Unbelievable.

After that, the film doesn't get any better. The characters are poorly developed, a lot of things are left open and/or unexplained and it is obvious the whole time that you're viewing a (bad) book adaptation.

This Spanish thriller is centred on the hunt for a serial killer; each time he strikes he kills two people; one male one female. Each pair of victims is from a wealthy family and five years older than the previous pair. His crimes mirror those that happened twenty years previously; the man accused of those crimes is in prison but is due to be released soon. Policeman Unai López de Ayala, a skilled profiler, is put in charge of the case; his first since returning to work after the death of his wife. He works alongside younger female officer Estíbaliz Ruiz de Gauna.

I enjoyed this film although in the already crowded serial killer genre it doesn't feel enormously original. There are some nice ideas such as there being pairs of victims each time and a disturbing yet novel method of murder. We are told the identity of the killer, and their connection to somebody close to our protagonist fairly early on so there isn't really a mystery about who is doing it; just a question of why, and how they will ultimately be stopped. I liked our two investigators; Javier Rey and Aura Garrido impress in these roles. The rest of the cast are pretty solid too. Everything looks good with impressive locations; both indoors and outside. Overall a decent enough addition to the genre; not a must see but still worth a watch... just don't expect it to be up there with 'The Silence of the Lambs'.

These comments are based on watching the film in Spanish with English subtitles.

While the main plot is fairly easy to follow, there are too many tangents and unresolved questions. The storyline jumps around and introduces side plots that are left unexplained and only muddy the central story. The acting was good and the English dubbing worked well enough. But just too darn confusing.

I've noticed that the terrible reviews seem to come from people watching the dubbed version of films on Netflix. The lazy or stupid who cannot read subtitles have no clue as to the true storytelling and acting presented to them.

This is no Silence Of The Lambs, but well worth of watching if one can actually read subtitles while viewing.