Spoiler alert, this isn't a great movie but whatever fun there is will be ruined by finding out the details. Everybody loves Denzel, including myself, and he's the perfect guy to play Sheriff Deputy Joe Deacon, a man with a strangely checkered past. From the trailers this seems like a redemption story of an old cop obsessed with catching a serial killer; partly because he was involved with a similar case years ago and something went terribly wrong. Here he has a fairly mundane assignment, which is to go to Los Angeles and pick up a piece of evidence for a murder case back home. At the LA Cop Shop, you can tell he's got a history with some of the officers there. There is a little snafu and Joe has to spend the night and while he's there becomes interested in a serial killer case being run by a hotshot young Sergeant Jim Baxter (Rami Malek) who is desperate to catch the bad guy. The two of them bond quicker than I had expected, and focus in on a very creepy suspect Albert Sparma (Jared Leto).  On top of his unnerving personality there  is a mountain of circumstantial evidence that point to him. Just not quite enough for a warrant, but anyone who's ever seen a cop movie knows that isn't always a deal breaker. Joe, Jim and everybody in the audience are almost positive this guy is the killer. Almost.  And that, friends, is the hook of the film.  Sparma plays a cat and mouse game with the officers that culminates in taking Baxter to a deserted place promising to reveal the location of the one missing body.  After digging hole after hole after hole and being taunted that this guy knows what his wife and family look like Baxter swings the shovel and Sparma is dead.  Upon arriving at the scene, the older and wiser deputy and sergeant just drop the supposed killer into one of the holes and vow never to speak of it again.  In case you cheated and read this far before seeing the film I won't get too specific about the very ending but let's say Joe gives Jim a tiny ray of hope so that uncertainty of this case won’t torture him for the rest of his life.  And yes, we eventually find out about the incident that has bothered Deacon for all these years. And I’m not telling you that either.  I do wonder about the statement writer / director John Lee Hancock was trying to make. Is he emulating the tragic and unsatisfying endings of some of the classic Swedish films?  Was he trying to make a moral point about killing the bad guys?  Trying to stir psychological debate? It's hard to tell partially because not everything makes as much sense as it probably should for continuity’s sake.  If all the loose ends are meant to be intriguing unfortunately, they often come off as sloppy. I gave the film an extra half weather grade just for Denzel's presence.
C+
WSS