L'homme du labyrinthe

I am not usually leaving reviews here but i honestly think that this movie is underrated. It kept me excited for the full 2 hours, something that nowadays hardly a movie manages.

A kidnapped girl is found 15 years after her abduction. A celebrated psychiatrist is trying to deal with her trauma and a retired detective who only has hours to live is ready to put it all on the line to find a vicious killer. Will he be able to succeed? And who is the real villain?

Donato Carrisi adapts his rather complex and at times convoluted plot to a film that makes surprising sense. That alone is an achievement. This is chronologically the third book in the series which makes it a particularly difficult adaptation. The good news - it works out well.

Writers rarely makes good directors. Carrisi is an exception. Choosing carefully his colour pallet he nods to the "giallo" sub-genre of the 80s and draws inspiration from the likes of Dario Argento (Suspiria). The whole movie feels like a dream-like sequence, although it is more procedural crime fiction than anything else.

What makes the movie feel focused is its great performances. Dustin Hoffman as Dr Green who is trying to get into the mind of a beautiful victim and Toni Servillo (THE GREAT BEAUTY) as a dying detective who has made it his life goal to catch the killer, carry the film on their shoulders. The story has an episodic structure and echoes heavily the SAW franchise, although, I am sure, Carrisi would be devastated to hear of the comparison. What he has been trying to create with his books (and films) is a serial killer cinematic universe. INTO THE LABYRINTH may not be the best start, but it definitely has the potential to becoming a mystery to remember.

But with puzzling bits and pieces as though sections have been edited-for example: the origin of the relationship between a prostitute and a criminal tracker, with references to a girl, known to both, who he couldn't save. Later, the killer being tracked deduces both the man who is hunting him and also his relationship with the prostitute...to lure him off of the trail, in an elaborate and improbable ruse that the killer appears to survive only by luck and the tracker's grace.

Dustin Hoffman, despite reports that he is losing his memory, manages to turn in a typically gifted performance. Not the man's first day on the job, even if he is making Russian-produced movies now. He doesn't disappoint. There are several other interesting performances as well as some that are pure schlock.

The design is also uneven, with an inspired division of cold case child abductions, aptly named "Limbo" and some sets that are practically out of an amusement park's haunted house. The style of story-telling itself, switches genre several times; a rocky journey between dream-like, heightened sequences that were not literal and those which appeared intended to be.

As a result, the general feeling is one of a pastiche of tropes used in other, better, movies.

Despite all of my criticism, the film was engaging and clever when it wasn't lost and ham-fisted. I liked that it was told simply, with mostly interior shots...landscape was saved for moments of impact, instead of thrown away in the type of lazy spoon-fed narrative this movie shares nothing in common with.

A scholar of Dante's work will surely draw more parallels than I did-this was written by an Italian author and set in Italy. I caught only very obvious references, such as a map of the maze comprising (I am pretty sure) the right number of levels to make the dungeon Hell.

Worth a look. Better than a lot out there.

Very interesting story & plot. The characters are not so likable, I think because the script is so mysterious & full of secrets. Now the confusing part, you must watch it twice to understand the whole story; it feels like there are two parallel ones & they meet at the end. The time is kinda irrelevant as the plot shifts alot at the end. It also gave me Sin City "vibes".

Whether you can figure out where the movie will lead you or whether the split narrative excites you enormously ... well that will be up to you. The movie has great actors for sure - and there are hints I reckon that are telling you where it goes. Because you may second guess certain things, but the movie also hints if you are right about that - or your suspicions in general.

The structure is well thought of, but it also leaves certain things on the floor. No pun intended ... there is a lot of mystery and I feel the movie had way more potential that it actually was able to dig out and really explore. Even so, it is well told it is more than a decent thriller and it is "fun" to watch.