Killing Fields

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.

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")

In the Texas bayous, a local homicide detective teams up with a cop from New York City to investigate a series of unsolved murders.

The casting on this film is perfect -- Sam Worthington, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and the flawless Chloe Moretz. The directing and cinematography are great, with the dark, gritty feel that one would expect from your better serial killer films. And the story, despite being disjointed, is a pretty good one.

That being said, I have a major problem with this film -- it is fiction. My understanding is that the police involved with the real case were hoping this film would promote the true unsolved murders in the "Texas killing fields". Well, I am sure they must be disappointed. The story is fake, the solution is fake... they even changed the name of the city.

Now, here is the thing... if you are going to call this film "Texas Killing Fields" and then make it about nothing related to the case, the least you can do is put a featurette on the DVD. I know two former detectives who are willing to talk about the case. I know some family members of victims who have a story to tell. If one of the goals was to promote the real case (in order to get it solved), the people behind this movie did not do even the most basic of things to accomplish this goal.

If I pretend that this movie was not very loosely based on a true story, I can be more praising. Like I said, it looks great and the cast is phenomenal. Moretz never fails to impress, and I think Morgan should be an A-lister in the world of Hollywood. He impressed me in "The Resident" and again here.

While I have not read other reviews, I suspect there is a running theme to talk about the director's father, maybe saying things like "being in his shadow". I hope these sort of comments are few and far between. Ami Mann holds her own, and whether she was a famous director's daughter or not, she has the skills and is blazing her own trail.

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....

I was sort of hanging for this film, great cast, story line that can make for great viewing, and I like the setting of the story as well. And after another lackluster year when it comes to entertainment on the big screen, I thought this could be great!

Well sadly to say it is messy, when it comes to this kind of cop film, you need direction, some one that can tell the story at a good pace, connect all the dots, get you engrossed in the mood of the film, make you sit and wait for more clues and so on, but this film lacks all of that.

Sure the acting is solid, but I expected that with the good cast, but it just does not flow at a good pace, it jumps over some dots that should be connected to make you feel you are part of the characters, and that's where this film is messy, hence my score of 5, sort of sits in the middle.

Nothing special, but not bad either, 5 out of 5 for this one.