Exposed - Nell'ombra di un delitto

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.

2 stories here. Firstly, Reeves plays a cop investigating the killing of his corrupt partner and secondly De Armas is a deeply religious woman living with her husband's close knit Dominican family whilst awaiting his return from serving in Iraq. At the beginning of the film, waiting for a train she has the first of several bizarre visions.

Whilst there are one or two points of interest here and De Armas is as good as ever, this is a directionless mess of a film which simply makes no sense whatsoever. Add to this that it is all pretty boring and that at the end it just stops, resolving nothing and you have the makings of a truly dire production.

Of interest however, there is some controversy around this film. The producers, Lionsgate, were apparently expecting a standard Keanu Reeves cop thriller (presumably they decided not to read the script) and when they saw the original film, called 'Daughter of God', they had a seizure and recut the thing into the shambles we have today as 'Exposed'.

I have not seen 'Daughter of God', but by all accounts it is a flawed, but fairly coherent story of a woman and her beliefs with the cop element being a key but secondary element of the story. I do not doubt that there are films out there that producers have restored to masterpieces and which went on to make box office gold, this though seems to be another classic tale of producers misunderstanding what they were getting / had and just turned what they had into total rubbish. What a waste, because when you analyse the nonsense you've seen, you can detect sparks of what it might have been.

While Knock-Knock was a mishap, Keanu Reeves still carries the buzz from John Wick, so it's peculiar to see his new movie flies under the radar. It's soon apparent that "Exposed" has a rather jumbled presentation. The movie uses multi perspective style and it does try to deliver heavy subject such as abuse, but it's ultimately too broken to create any appropriate connection.

The two perspectives are too messy, as though the screenplay or editing is done sloppily. Keanu's point of view is that of noir detective, although the investigation moves so slowly and erratically. Meanwhile Ana de Armas plays as a troubled wife who might just see some apparition. From the color tone, the pace and even the script, these two stories are utterly different.

It's not to say that there's not an artistic goal in mind, it could have dealt with mature theme well, however the jarring shift is confusing to say the least. It would jump from festive vibe, to brooding case and suddenly to what seems to be psychological thriller with metaphor. This is a really odd direction and it doesn't have to be such, it feels as though the movie tries to needlessly overreach.

Both the leads perform admirably, in some instances Ana de Armas looks amiable and Keanu Reeves still has his appealing presence. However, the plot is chaotic, there would be incredibly slow development and subplots, yet it would hasten abruptly in mere minutes. The few segments from other angles don't really pan out in the grand scheme, while its intended twist is hampered by over saturation of horror genre, which is odd to see in crime drama.

This kind of sudden change is not uncommon, some thriller movies shifted to more action atmosphere for casual audience or some action flicks would be altered to accommodate more famous stars. Still, the extreme shift of tone here doesn't have any appeal instead it's only a distraction.

"Exposed" could have had a surreal depth for narrative, yet it's a just a confusing mess that barely has any charm and even that small spark is muddle with messy production.

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.

No it's not without it's flaws but overall I didn't feel like it was a waste of time watching it and I did think it succeeded on most parts.

I've heard people talk about this movie as very weird and not understanding what it was about but I thought they did very well at wrapping lose ends together in the end and explaining the "weird" elements, even though you kind of have to tie the points together yourself.

Maybe some people simply forgot to put the subtitles on and was lost because of that (40% of it is in Spanish).

And the acting was good overall with Ana De Armas and Keanu Reeves in the leads, both who also did KNOCK KNOCK together, they get to showcase a little more acting range here though. Rapper Big Daddy Kane has a fairly big supporting role as a crimeboss and he's not too bad either.

It should be noted though that there might be a director's cut coming out at some point because the studio decided that in order to sell it as a Keanu Reeves vehicle (who was only originally meant to be a supporting role) remove chunks of Ana De Armas and the Latino family's scenes and make it more thriller based where as the original intent was always drama.

It still has plenty of that and I still think it works but I can imagine that the DC might be better (and more of a crowd pleaser).

But it made the director so angry at the studio that he asked to have him credited under a pseudonym.

Should also be noted though I suppose that sometimes the director doesn't know best in these cases either, for instance Tony Kaye had infamous fights with Edward Norton regarding the cut of American HISTORY X and that still turned out to be pretty good (not comparing the 2 quality-wise though just making a point).

Now I should be noted to just shut up and let you decide if you want to watch it or not.