Crimes Obscuros

Greetings again from the darkness. A neo-noir "inspired by actual events" and based on a compelling 2008 "New Yorker" article by the great David Grann (THE LOST CITY OF Z) seems to have the necessary components for a satisfying thriller. So what went wrong? Unfortunately, a messy script from Jeremy Brock (THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND) prevents this one from ever having a chance at grabbing our attention, much less holding it.

This is the first English language film from director Alexandros Avranas (MISS VIOLENCE, 2013) and his cast is led by Jim Carrey as police inspector Tadek, a disgraced cop who takes care of his elderly mother while also obsessing over the now coldcase that ruined his career. Carrey sports a Polish accent through "most" of his performance ... a performance that is mostly subdued, especially given his career. Joining him as co-leads in the cast are two other excellent actors: Martin Csokas and Charlotte Gainsbourg. Csokas plays Kozlow, the main antagonist and suspect - an author with clues to the key murder highlighted in his novel. Ms. Gainsbourg is underutilized as Kasia, the former sex worker, now intimate acquaintance of Kozlow. She is the key to solving the case.

Grann's article entitled "True Crimes: A Postmodern Murder Mystery" told the story of novelist/convicted murderer Krystian Bala. It's an article worth reading and one that bears only passing resemblance to this screen adaptation. The film is purposefully drab, bleak, dark, grey and dour, with a stark, cold look to the characters and most every scene. Tadek is a man on a mission to save his reputation, even at the expense of his family life, or really any life at all. The game of cat and mouse between Tadek and Kozlow never reaches the level of tension that the film seems to think it does ... even in the one-on-one interrogation scene or the seemingly endless blabbering of the recordings Tadek listens to.

There is a terrific international cast of supporting actors including Vlad Ivanov, Robert Wieckiewicz, Piotr Glowacki and Agata Kulesza, but the cast is only able to do so much with the material. Perhaps the draw is supposed to be Jim Carrey is the darkest role of his career. On the bright side, the story is neatly wrapped up at the end thanks to one character who deserves a "win".

Wow what a different JIM CARREY we have here!!! & he was Excellent in this very dark crime Thriller, i think Carrey is great at Drama & this movie really shows how good an actor he really is, feels like we're FINALLY getting to see the REAL jim carrey,the Jim Carrey he always wanted to show on screen!!! I grew up watching Carrey like EVERYONE did as the rubber face crazy comic genius but there is NO trace of that Carrey here at all!!! Here is a powerful performance by the "New" Jim Carrey & i loved it. Dark Crimes itself is a very dark & dreary Crime Thriller & I'm not going into the story because this should be watched not knowing really anything about it except it's a dark crime Thriller & that's how i watched it, i didn't read or watch a single review i just heard about Jim Carrey doing this very serious crime Thriller & waited to buy it on dvd. So yeah this is a very good Thriller with a very moody atmosphere & very dreary & dark with a serious & excellent JIM CARREY who gives a fantastic performance with an accent!!! Just watch it & get hooked into the story like i did & I'm so looking forward to more darker serious roles by Carrey hopefully in the future? JIM CARREY has successfully transitioned from Comic legend to a great serious Actor

This movie started off well and Jim Carey does A decent job. But the ending is such a letdown and it feels rushed. It's not terrible but it ain't good either. 5/10

Overall the film was very disappointing and I was expecting a B grade movie to begin with. I'm a Jim Carrey fan, but I would not recommend anyone waste their time with this movie. It was just put together badly and creates a mess.It is predictable, boring, slow, with a plain, depressing color palette, too much silence, in a story that tries to be complex but is not. I see there was effort here, just not one that actually amounted to something worthwhile.Everything was there..but whoever put it all together dropped the ball big time..People will want to watch this movie because Jim is in it but pass this one up if you are on the fence about watching it. Trust me. A 5 in my book is "worth watching once". I rate this a 4, because it is not worth watching.

Disgraced Polish Officer Tadek (Jim Carrey) wants to investigate the murder of a slain policeman to prove himself as he had botched a previous investigation. He is so obsessed with this case that he ignores his family. He finds similarities between the murder and details found in author Krystov Kozlov's (Marton Csokas) novel because the details of the actual murder were never released to the public, but Tadek sees them in the novel. He believes he has his man.

This will be very slow going. In the beginning, we see a lot of nudity when scenes are shown in the sex club that Koslov goes to from time to time. After those scenes we no longer see any frontal nudity. . Talking about a sex club where girls were also tortured would have sufficed, but the Director wanted more. See?

There are very few dialogues throughout especially from Tadek. As Tadek, Carrey uses a Polish accent, but I have heard better as he does it with almost no accent. Not good. And Carrey as Tedak sports a beard that makes him almost unrecognizable. I did wish that Carrey as TAdek spoke more about the case so we knew what he was thinking. Didn't happen too often.

The two main characters alongside Carrey are excellent. There is Charlotte Gainsbourg as Kasia, who is Kozlov's girlfriend; and then there is Marton Csokas as Koslov and he gives off a such commanding presence, I kind of wished he was the good guy.

I have always said that comedians have timing down perfectly when they go into drama. Jim Carrey has that in here. Kudos.

There will be 2-twists later on. The first one almost surprised me, but the last one caught me completely by surprise. Will it surprise you? (7/10)

Violence: No. Sex: Yes. Nudity: Yes. Humor: No. Language: Yes. Rating: B