Un Lobo Feroz

In the Israeli crime thriller "Big Bad Wolves," a bereaved father and a demoted cop take the law into their own hands when they team up to torture and murder a man they suspect of being a serial child killer. And, oh, by the way, the movie is a comedy - at least of sorts.

With its grim subject matter and relatively graphic torture sequences, "Big Bad Wolves," written and directed by Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado, is clearly not for every taste or audience demographic. However, the rich vein of dark humor that runs through the work - a humor derived primarily from the juxtaposition between the mundane concerns of everyday life and the horrific nature of the deeds being performed - mitigates some of the more distasteful elements of the film. The movie also effectively raises some intriguing questions about the effect vigilante justice has on the individual who's engaged in it.

The screenplay deliberately shuns the trite and the formulaic, as it challenges audiences to evaluate their own moral proclivities at every stage in the drama. The filmmakers draw sharp performances from their cast (Rotem Keinan, Lior Ashkenazi, Tzahi Grad and Doval'e Grickman) and always keep us wondering where exactly this gruesome, but often oddly funny, little tale of criminal comeuppance is headed. That the destination turns out to be a mite flatfooted when it finally arrives isn't enough to blunt the overall effectiveness of the film.

It sounds like a comedy, and certainly, the way the movie plays undermines the seriousness of the subject, (no spoilers here!) but that is okay, because not always do things have to be so gritty, dark and brutal.

In a way, "Big Bad Wolves" is the antithesis of "Prisoners" (2013), and this is not a bad thing, because "Big Bad Wolves" does not toy with our emotions, anger or despair, but with our curiosity, with our doubts, all the way to the final scene that fades into the elegance of irony and what we already knew.

The acting and the atmosphere creates what I crave most in a film, and this is: unpredictability; who really did it?, why?, where? These questions became irrelevant, because we are just in it for the ride that provides a good movie like this.

So Quentin Tarantino had this one on his top ten flicks of 2013. I don't know why I thought this was going to be a horror movie, maybe it was because of the tittle, but it does have some frighting elements in it.

Three men from three different walks of life, all of which are bad fathers. The movie centers around one bad father whose child is raped and murdered supposedly by one of the other bad fathers, and when the cops, lead by another bad father, failed to bring this man to justice even by any means necessary, he takes matters into his own hands.

It was a well crafted psychological thriller about what a father would do to seek vengeance for the crimes committed against their children based upon his own guilt of not being there for them. The movie was very low key and had the viewer use their imagination for a lot of what could have been the horror parts.

What surprised me most was how this slow film was such a roller coaster ride as they keep the viewers trying to figure out if the protagonist was doing the right thing to the right man to get vengeance.

Tarantino was right about this one.

Embittered over his preteen daughter's rape and murder, an intelligence officer kidnaps the chief suspect and sets about torturing him with the assistance of a former detective in this gripping Israeli thriller. From the premise alone, 'Big Bad Wolves' might sound like a sadistic 'torture porn' movie, however, the focus of the film is the torturers themselves and their unflinching certainty that they have the right man despite his ongoing protests of innocence and the severe lack of evidence against him. Have the torturers let their emotions overcome them and get in the way of sound judgment, or could they actually be right? It is an interesting central dynamic, however, the film would have benefited from greater ambiguity. It is made so abundantly clear that the torture victim is innocent that we are constantly on his side throughout and never really on the side of the intelligent officer and detective. The initially shocking ending also makes less and less sense the more one thinks about it and the comedy angle often awkwardly subtracts from the grimness of the tale. That said, there are admittedly some genuine laughs in the mix. The film is enticing the whole way too; certain scenes are so brutal that they are hard to watch, but there is a welcome intensity in the air with the lingering questions of just how far the torturers will go and just how much suffering their victim will undergo before he confesses (regardless of actual guilt) as the pain becomes too much. The acting is top notch, especially from Doval'e Glickman, and the sets and music are appropriately ominous.

I was very surprised at how good and nerve-wrecking this movie was, as well as twisted. I had previously seen many publications about the movie, but always thought it was more of a comedy, but I'm glad I watched it because it was great. It had a very good combination of dark humor and gore. It kept me entertained and on the edge of my sit through most of the movie, and about those last minutes of the movie, you have to see them to be surprised and get chills down your spine. It's one of the best surprises I've had in a movie this year because its way better than what you expect. With great acting, script and even the music, it adds a lot of tension until it comes to an end. Awesome thriller and study of how you can't never fight evil with evil.