Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.0

Dark Crimes Blu-ray Movie Review

Eternal Cloudiness of the Sullied Mind.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 30, 2018

It’s one of the arguably kind of sad ironies of show business that some actors work and toil for years for recognition and then after that recognition is finally granted spend an equal amount of time trying to escape whatever “image” of themselves has imprinted on the public’s mind. There are any number of famous, maybe even legendary, performers who have sought to remake the public’s perception of them, and some of the most interesting examples come from actors who have initially made their mark in either outright comedies or, in a broader sense, more “lightweight” roles. The inimitable Bing Crosby, probably best known for musicals and agreeable comedy roles like his long running Road series with Bob Hope, won an Oscar for a kinda sorta dramatic role in Going My Way , but it was his surprising work as an alcoholic in The Country Girl that may have really alerted audiences to the depths lingering beneath a crooner’s facade. (In the irony department, it was Grace Kelly who took home an Oscar for this film, with Crosby having to make do with “only” a nomination.) Marilyn Monroe had not exactly been lionized for her acting chops throughout her early career, despite stabs at “respectability” with kind of turgid fare like Niagara, but just a few years after Crosby stunned with his dramatic turn, Monroe was something of a revelation in the film version of Bus Stop. While both Crosby and Monroe were perfectly at home in comedies (Crosby as more of a straight man), I doubt anyone would really classify these iconic performers as comedians, at least in the stand up sense. Some of the most interesting “make overs” in the annals of cinema have come courtesy of those best known for either sketch, standup or sitcom work who went on to largely comedy based film roles who then later tried to prove their dramatic capabilities with 180 degree turns at some point in their careers. Some relatively recent examples might include Eddie Murphy’s work in Dreamgirls and Jennifer Aniston in Cake. Jim Carrey’s turns in The Truman Show and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind might have qualified him for this somewhat exclusive “club”, though the whimsical (if bittersweet and science fiction tinged) undertones of both of those films may have kept some folks from realizing just how “dramatic” Carrey could be. That aspect may have been dealt with in The Number 23, a “horror” film (in more ways than one) that has some kind of strange parallels to Dark Crimes, Carrey’s latest foray into “serious” acting.

The Number 23 toyed with perception and a kind of interaction between “fiction” and “reality”, all also elements of Dark Crimes. Dark Crimes purports to be based on a real life incident which itself was profiled in this rather fascinating article in The New Yorker by David Gann. Unfortunately, screenwriter Jeremy Brock (The Last King of Scotland) departs from “the facts, and only the facts” (at least insofar as Gann reported them in his article) in a perhaps understandable attempt to ratchet up the “rational” (in the form of a detective) vs. “irrational” (in the form of an artist) aspects of the story. The result is sometimes intermittently captivating, but the film’s overly arty style often overpowers what in essence is kind of a procedural.

Carrey portrays a Polish detective named Tadek, a guy who is evidently on the rebound after some kind of failed investigation, though as with quite a bit else in this film, very little contextualizing and/or background information is imparted to the viewer, leaving them kind of awash in content that sometimes doesn’t make complete sense. Tadek is obsessed (another The Number 23 analog) with an old case involving a corpse pulled out of a river that was hogtied and may have been part of a sex game gone awry. That element has already been alluded to in some frankly shocking opening vignettes documenting a Polish sex club known as The Cage. When it turns out a book by a Polish author named Kozlow (Marton Csokas) has a number of correlations to the actual crime, Tadek is obviously intrigued and brings the writer in for questioning.

So far, so good, but Dark Crimes tends to forfeit any suspense or even narrative momentum with some kind of odd stylistic conceits. This film has a ton of monologues delivered directly to the camera, in what I assume is meant to be some kind of quasi verité approach, but which often comes off as merely pretentious. There are also a bunch of truly odd interstitial scenes of either people driving or more “still life” material of buildings and the like that really seem to be nothing other than padding. Carrey is rather interesting in a role that could have definitely used more writing acumen (two examples: what’s up with Tadek’s elderly mother, or what appears to be his family? and what exactly is the story with Tadek’s failed investigation which brought him into a downward career spiral?), but it’s Csokas who really commands the screen, even if his take on the character tends to be one note and reactionary much of the time. Charlotte Gainsbourg is also on hand as someone with a connection to the author whose real identity is supposedly a huge revelation and one which may help to solve the case, but most armchair sleuths are going to guess her identity, if not her actual role in the case, long before it's doled out in this often weirdly listless enterprise.

Dark Crimes Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Dark Crimes is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. Once again the IMDb hasn't been updated to include any relevant technical data, but the "Making Of" featurette included on the Blu-ray clearly shows some kind of digital capture being utilized (I simply couldn't make out the brand of camera being used), and I'm assuming this was finished at a 2K DI. Michal Englert's cinematography is arguably one of the more interesting things about this film, but as can be seen in the screenshots accompanying this review, anyone looking for "wow" aesthetics will probably want to continue their search elsewhere. The palette is decidedly nondescript throughout the film, with an emphasis on steely grays (with occasional detours to kind of dowdy looking browns) and an overall desaturated appearance that keeps colors from ever attaining any real vividness. There's also a tendency to push highlights so that backlighting tends to kind of create glowing auras around characters. All of this tends to make things look a bit soft at times, though close-ups still offer good levels of fine detail.

Dark Crimes Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Dark Crimes features a rather subdued DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix. There are bursts of surround activity in elements like the opening montage documenting the sex club, or even in some of the cavernous nooks and crannies of the police headquarters, but this is a pretty talky picture where the "big" moments are two handers between Carrey and Csokas (and, later, Carrey and Gainsbourg), and as such immersion is on the minimal side. Fidelity is fine throughout the presentation, and dialogue is rendered clearly and cleanly, though some folks may want to access the optional English subtitles for some of the more heavily accented Polish performers who are in the film.

Dark Crimes Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Making of Dark Crimes (1080p; 19:42) is an okay EPK that does benefit from a lot of behind the scenes footage interspersed with brief interview segments.

Dark Crimes Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Dark Crimes has a really interesting premise, but screenwriter Jeremy Brock and director Alexandros Avranas don't seem to totally trust David Gann's source article and instead try to "tart up" the proceedings with frankly shocking depictions of misogynistic behavior (this is not a film for the squeamish) as well as stylistic peculiarities that obscure the story rather than supporting it. Still, this occasionally achieves a visceral quality, if almost by accident, and fans of Carrey may want to check it out. Technical merits are generally solid for those considering a purchase.