Almost Blue

The film tells the story of a hunt for a serial killer in Bologna, Italy. "Almost blue" is closer of "Manhunter", by Michael Mann, than many other "serial killer movie". The story focuses more on the psychology of the three main characters, the police officer who leads the search, the disturbed killer, and the blind guy that somehow helps the police, than on action and intrigue. There's a lot of violence and disturbing images, but, it seems to me, they were functional to the feeling of anguish and anxiety of the movie and they were not at all put in the movie just to shock the audience. An unusual feature for an Italian movie, the film has a very high cure for its visual and sound style and for keeping a coherent narrative tone from the beginning to the end.

There's a serial killer loose in the Italian city of Bologna, and from the get go, we're introduced to the aftermath of a very brutal killing in the hands of a psycho, with a preference for extremely loud music played through his headphones. I thought the killer here is very much like the one in the 2004 film Taking Lives starring Ethan Hawke and Angelina Jolie, where the murderer lingers and adopts the persona of the person he kills, before moving onto the next victim.

In essence this is your classic cat and mouse thriller that explores the links between the three leads in rookie policewoman Grazia (Lorenza Indovina), the psycho killer played by Rolando Ravello to Aamir-Khan-Ghajini's crazed perfection, and the blind man Simone (Claudio Santamaria), who gets caught up in the entire episode because he wilds his time away at his computer listening in to chatrooms, police scanners and what have yous, like an online busybody oracle. In doing so, he puts himself unwittingly in the line of fire as the killer decides to make him the next target. And so the premise is set, and I felt there's a truck load of potential here to at least live up to average thriller expectations.

There was what I thought a perfect moment set up in allowing the audience's imagination to run wild with one killing - you can hear audible sighs of sorrow when the killer picks his mark, because while the character was nothing more than a supporting one, appearing only to nag, everyone understood instantly the impact it is going to have in the story moving on. The aftermath of that was nothing short of poignant, and that hammered home the notion of how evil is as evil can be.

If there's a major letdown in the exciting build-up, it's how everything gets wrapped up in the end too conveniently and in major anti-climatic fashion. Big clue being the need to adopt the persona, and having everyone turn up at the right place at the right time, with room for some sexy time thrown in as well for good measure, just because it's Gialli. It turned what could have been room for a tight, climatic finale into a joke of convenience probably stemming from a lack of ideas. Great build-up, but terrible finale.

The 99% of thriller/horror movies are based on this assumption: people are stupid. Only in this way we can explain the ridiculous plot and naive subject that the majority of this kind of movies have. A few examples are: The Bone collector, The Crimson Rivers, The Cell and, obviously, Almost Blue. Common 'features' of these movies are: - They want to be psychological thrillers. It's a pity that the psychological aspect of the killer seems written by a five years old children. - They want to be 'belivable' but I think that an episode of The Simpsons is much more realistic. There's always a super-policeman/fbi agent that seems to have the control of all the police department. He/she knows every single move of the killer...but always 2 minutes later. There's ALWAYS someone that can help the 'hero' to get the killer but doing this he/she risks his/her own life... They are all the same! - They want to scare the audience. The problem here is that after the first 5 minutes you are able to predict EXACTLY how the story will end.

Almost Blue has all the above features and much more :) The only good thing about this movie are the last 2 minutes...the final scene is somewhat poetic but, unfortunately, it can't save Almost Blue from being a really mediocre movie...

This could had been a pretty good genre movie but instead it's a pretty average and forgettable one now. Just when you think the movie is starting to get more interesting it doesn't go through with it and the movie doesn't go anywhere really with its story.

Watching a movie like this always makes you think why did they even make a movie out of this. The story could had just as well been one for an average detective-series, for TV. There isn't really anything that makes this movie stand out.

No, it's not bad all to watch but it's also easily a movie you can do without.

The movie tried to give the movie some more style and class by making the movie it's visual look quite artistic at times, like lots of 'modern' Italian movies often do. It could had worked out if the shots had actually served a purpose for the movie but instead these sort of scenes would just irritate me because the movie was trying too hard at times. I just don't like it when a movie is trying to be constantly different but it doesn't actually enhance the movie its style or story.

It's also pretty much a movie by the numbers. The movie is perhaps lacking in some good surprises or plot twists and now instead also ends pretty disappointingly. The way the way story progresses also doesn't exactly help to make this movie a credible one or even not a compelling one.

Nothing too bad but the movie isn't really heading anywhere with its formulaic story and is not good enough with any of its other aspects to really stand out within its genre.

6/10

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Almost Blue is a very dark thriller, based upon the homonym book. I usually don't like movies based upon the book but this is great. Very well directed by Infascelli, in my opinion Almost Blue challenges the masterpieces of its kind like "The silence of the lambs". The script it's very smart and in a way very unusual, as a matter of fact the movie is full of original scenes. It's surprising how a quite young director can do things like that. Even the music theme of the movie, a famous version of the song "almost blue" by Elvis Costello, is amazing and fitting with the mood of the movie. Give it a chance because it absolutely worths the price.