Filha de Deus

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.

There is a long story line that I found difficult to follow due to lack of interested. It's watchable but that's about it. More of a background noise type movie.

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.

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.

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.