Killing Fields

In Little Texas, Texas, Detectives Brian Heigh (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and Mike Souder (Sam Worthington) are investigating a series of murders of women by a serial-killer. When they leave the crime scene where a body was found, Brian brings the girl Ann Sliger (Chloë Grace Moretz) that is on probation to the house of her dysfunctional family and delivers the neglected Ann to her careless mother.

Then they are called by Detective Pam Stall (Jessica Chastain), who is Mike's ex-wife, to help her to investigating a case of missing woman, but the case is outside their jurisdiction. However, they join Pam in her investigation while the family man Brian tries to help Ann and protect the girl against the abusive friends of her mother. Mike follows a clue that leads to two local criminals while Brian follows a different line of investigation and finds that the bodies were dumped in an area called "The Killing Fields". When Ann is kidnapped by the serial-killer, Brian seeks her out alone in the dangerous land.

"Texas Killing Fields" is an underrated and gritty detective story. The screenplay could be improved since the situation of two different groups of killers is confused but later the plot becomes clearer and the viewer is able to understand the big picture.

The locations in the bayous show an American reality that is not well- explored in Amereican films.The cast has great actors and actresses and the performances are excellent. Ami Canaan Mann is the daughter of Michael Mann and this is her second feature. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Em Busca de um Assassino" ("Chasing a Killer")

OK.

Mumbling, yes. about as much as Run Baby Run. Archetypal characters, well, tick, but then this is the US.

Personally, I liked it. I didn't expect to, but it was OK. They did a 'Coen brothers-y' thing, not really explaining the back story.

OK. Maybe the two male leads have similar attitudes to women and to their abusers as I do, so maybe that biases me, but I don't think that's all.

I think this has a body. Brains, guts, and a spine. The minor parts are well cast and directed, and the three leads rock.

I'm a bit surprised how slated this has been on IMDb.

I liked it, OK? So sue me....

Detectives Mike Souder (Sam Worthington) and Brian Heigh (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) are investigating mutilated bodies dumped in a marsh known as the Killing Fields. They pick up Anne Sliger (Chloë Grace Moretz) who is under probation and is suppose to be home but she doesn't get along with her troubled mother Lucie (Sheryl Lee). Detective Pam Stall (Jessica Chastain) is a police investigator from the neighboring jurisdiction and Mike's ex-wife.

It has some grimy hard-boiled police drama. It's not breaking any new grounds. The actors try to do good work. Other than Worthington, I like all the actors. It has a moody backwoods sense. It's slow and disjointed at times. Directed by Ami Canaan Mann daughter of the famous Michael Mann, this is a good starting point but is not good enough to guarantee future greatness. She has an interesting eye but there is not enough tension for much of the movie.

Apparently this is based on true events which occurred several decades prior spanning for a long time. This film has more so the feel of an episode of CSI or any police crime drama thriller type we have seen before. Also somewhat reminded of True Detective but this was obviously made before that. It starts off slow, picks up the pacing and interest a little in the middle then doesn't exactly reach to great heights as it should have.

Chloë Grace Moretz is possibly the standout in a very early tome portraying a troubled teen. The highlight and climax involves her being ultimately kidnapped with the lead cop (Sam Worthington) finding the killer in the house and ultimately taking them down. The reveal of the killer was far too predictable and rather anti climatic. In the end, this film wasn't anything special and was rather average.

With a great cast list, I jumped at this film with enthusiasm. This was met with a complete underutilisation of some of my favourite actors. For what it was Jeffrey Dean Morgan played his limited role well, Sam Worthing over acted his role making him less convincing and Chloe Moretz was vastly underused.

The plot is difficult to follow and some scenes seem completely unnecessary and others feel as though there needs to be more detail. The story overall suffers from a lack of telling and too much showing. The main plot itself was rather predicable and ultimately let me shaking my head in disapproval. Putting this aside there were some parts of the film that made it interesting and the overall story was good in premise.

I suppose I don't want to hate this film, because it has so much potential. It left me feeling disappointed, but as a point of reference of something done badly that could be brilliant, this is the perfect case.