Suspicions

A woman leaves a nightclub and, over the objections of her brother-in-law, insists on taking the subway home alone. On the train platform she witnesses an incredible event: an overly well-dressed man with a decidedly albino cast to his features walks on air and levitates above the subway track, peering down the tunnel to see if the train is arriving. He turns, walks back to the platform, and smiles at the woman.

The next day, a crooked police officer is found dead in the same subway station, and one by one, all the associates of the woman disappear or are murdered. She herself begins to witness surreal visions which increase in frequency when she befriends a small girl she suspects to be a victim of sexual abuse.

This movie had the makings of an intriguing plot, as the story expands and we learn more about the various characters and how they are, or may be, related. Unfortunately, the makings of a plot do not equal a plot itself, and this is never more so the case than when the studio edits the film to try to create suspense and mystery that should have been inherent in the original screenplay. The endless flashbacks, vision sequences, and out-of-chronology scenes add nothing to the film but confusion and, oddly enough, tedium. They take a better-than-average premise and turn it into a mess of a movie, saved primarily by the few nuggets of genuine creativity in the plot and the looks and acting of Ana de Armas and the cast who portray her family members.

I gave this film 6 stars, solely because I felt the current consensus of 4.2 is absurdly low. A realistic rating would be in the 5.2 to 5.5 range, in my opinion. As the film is only 90 minutes, you won't waste much time watching it if you happen to disagree.

So as I was about to post this review, I noticed on the trivia page notes on exactly what went wrong with this film, cause something did go terribly wrong on this one, terribly wrong.

The movie felt like one or two different movies, intertwined together really badly. The whole thing was all over the place with no real focus.

It's really sad because the acting in the movie was really good and I love how the filmmakers placed the movie in the Inwood section of Manhattan. I recognize the area and it made the movie feel so real. Like with the characters going naturally back and forth from Spanish to English, it fells like Dominican New York. Not only that, but the cinematography and the sound design really helps to put you right there on the streets. From the sounds of the buses and cars going by to parts where it was cloudy and raining. I really felt I was on those streets and not in a theater.

Plus Big Daddy Kane makes a rare acting appearance. How can this movie not be solid gold?

Well apparently it was not enough for the studios to have Keenu Reeves on the poster to sell tickets, they had to re-edit the movie to make sure he was more the star of the pic, and this puts everything off, because you still realize that Reeves' role as a detective trying to solve his crooked partner's murder is a small piece of a movie about a a young devoted catholic living with her husband's family while he's overseas, trying to wrap her head around deeply distributing issues that are triggered by her own connection to the this cop's murder.

So I herd that there is a director's cut of the movie. If that cut every comes to light, I would want to see what the filmmaker really was trying to do, but do not waste your time seeing this cut.

This is a movie that resembles a puzzle, in the sense that it has pieces that initially seem unrelated but in the end everything falls in place and you get the whole picture that it probably eluded you at the beginning.

The problem is that you don't know (or at least suspect) from the start that is such a movie, so for the most part you will feel cheated or at least disappointed.

Exposed had initially a different name which might be more suitable: "Daughter of God". Also the studio thought that they bought a police/crime/thriller starring Keanu Reeves. Don't be fooled, this not the case. The movie is far from a regular police drama.

Ana de Armas who starred with Reeves in the movie Knock-Knock gives a satisfying performance, but because of the somehow confusing premise, you might miss it. This time Keanu Reeves fails to give a good performance and in some scenes (like with Christopher McDonald who plays his Lieutenant) you might even notice him ...smirking despite the seriousness of the scene. Mira Sorvino is also in this and she is OK in a not-so-demanding role though.

Overall: This is not a poilice/crime/thriller. It is more like a psychological drama and I advise you to start thinking from the beginning about what is going on. Also stay with it, until the end, where all the pieces of the puzzle come together. Then you will see that it was a satisfying movie after all.

However, the marketing certainly is. It's not as exclusively idiotic as in the case of Cormac McCarthy/Ridley Scott's very formidable "The Counselor" (what you should know about that picture is that it's not a plot-driven thriller about trafficking, but an existential drama so gloomy that "Se7en" seems to be offering more hope in comparison … and now look at its poster), but the poster and the plot summary for this one produced by the studio and featured on IMDb are obviously misleading as well (even after the studio did its totally uncalled for re-editing of the material) and create false expectations. Hence – disappointed viewers and the abysmal rating.

So what else "Exposed" is NOT:

• This is not a movie starring Keanu Reeves. In fact, Reeves' character plays a very insignificant role in the developments. But unlike Emily Blunt's virtually 'non-existing' lead in "Sicario" that ultimately ruins that otherwise interesting and well-directed flick, it doesn't ruin anything here, because this movie more or less manages to get through the studio's irrational indeed interference and somehow remains centered around a female protagonist played by Ana de Armas. And Reeves should have been credited in the same way as Mira Sorvino is – "and Keanu Reeves".

• This movie is not an action thriller either. Police work and corrupt cops are present but seen from a different angle.

What is "Exposed" then? Despite all the carnage caused by the studio's decisions, it's still a legit psychological drama with half of its dialogue in Spanish, which structure resembles those another Spanish speaker Borges found fascinating in many Chesterton's stories – we have two explanations: a supernatural one and a realistic one. While all the story lines are not perfectly pulled together – again, probably thanks to precious alterations introduced by the "suits" – overall, the writing is competent. So is the directing. The acting could have been better at times, but it doesn't affect the movie in any critical way. All in all, it's a quite decent one – slightly above average.

If I'm not mistaken, Terry Gilliam said that after a nuclear disaster there will be two surviving species: cockroaches and studio executives. Well … long live Cockroaches!

Difficult movie to watch overall. Was waiting for this to tie together in a satisfying way, but it never happened. Think they were shooting for film noir M Knight hybrid but not even sure anymore after the ending.