I Feel Conflicted About To Catch a Killer

To Catch a Killer is more or less one long and unusually well-shot episode of Criminal Minds. A mass shooter is on the loose after his New Year's Eve sniping attack took twenty-nine lives, and FBI agent Lammark wants more than anything for policewoman Eleanor Falco to be assigned to the case after he sees in her an unusual and intriguing insight. Forgive my rabbit trail, but on the way to the answers they're looking for, Lammark and Falco are going to have to dodge white supremacists, mass shooters, straight people, and other stereotypical media talking points to get to the answers they're looking for. If it sounds to you like I'm making fun of the movie for some graceless messaging, then you have good ears. But don't let my incendiary hyperbole turn you off to this review if you're either a politically inclined person or against white supremacists and mass shooters, the former of which is your own personal choice, and the latter something I hope you are. To Catch a Killer might not be the most graceful or subtle movie of all time, but I loved a number of things about it despite its occasional heavy-handedness.

The atmosphere of To Catch a Killer punches on a level way above what I thought a Netflix original could or even should. It perfectly looks, feels, and acts the part of an oppressive neo-noir that is similar to - if not quite as atmospheric as - Gotham City in The Batman. Having watched Reeves's take on the Caped Crusader an unnecessarily large number of times, I noticed that much of Javier Julia's cinematography in To Catch a Killer either took heavy inspiration or even pulled direct shots from Grieg Fraser's work in what turned out to be a beautiful visual treat in and of itself. Likewise, the story here is a familiar but disturbingly interesting one, one that's played refreshingly to the utmost sincerity. It will keep you glued to the screen from start to finish.

Structured like a special episode of an investigative serial, To Catch a Killer is a familiar story. That's not entirely a bad thing. This movie is narratively a very comfortable watch, much like the cinematic equivalent of good comfort food. It needs to be because its mass-shooter-centric subject matter is quite appropriately unsettling. This movie can be a disturbing watch, not necessarily because it's culturally foreign so much as that it's all too familiar. I'm not going to weigh in on how I feel about gun control, but To Catch a Killer plays like a gruesome news headline in a way that's all too feasible in our very broken modern world.

The acting in this movie is hit and miss. Ben Mendelsohn is a great actor, even if he may play a variation of the same character in every movie he's in, and his portrayal of Agent Lammark is intense, focused, and yet somehow unpredictable all at once. On the flip side, Shailene Woodley's acting as Eleanor left much to be desired and was ultimately about as interesting as watching a soggy wooden board, making the lack of a main character's presence in To Catch a Killer hard to miss. Likewise, I wish this movie were more subtle. It makes too many statements while asking too few questions, and it too often sounds like a cultural talking point recitation rather than a genuinely thoughtful intellectual dagger when it's trying to be important. Nevertheless, I was drawn to its sincerity. Even if it might not have the delicacy of a masterfully opinionated orator, To Catch a Killer has an unmistakably comprehensive understanding of truly respectful showmanship. I wish every tragedy-centric movie could be this simultaneously desolate yet fascinating.

To Catch a Killer is a very familiar film, one that features patchy acting as well as some occasionally heavy-handed and stuffy messaging, a bad habit I've been increasingly trying to distance myself from for the last few years. Nevertheless, it makes up for this by being something important: morbidly and captivatingly fascinating from the first capital crime to the final closing credits. It's a beautifully shot and wildly immersive detective procedural that's disturbing in the right ways without feeling gratuitous. It's ever-so-obviously interested in the story it's telling, which is why I think you will be, too. It's an engrossing watch from start to finish, even if its more political and statement-based tendencies make me wish it had been as well-acted and subtle as it was interesting and as thought-provoking as it is shot.

Still, To Catch a Killer cures many of the ills I've come to associate with small-screen features, and we all know that even the best medicines come with side effects.

To Catch a Killer - 6/10

Titus 3:9-11