Title – To Catch a Killer (2023)

Director – Damián Szifron (Wild Tales) 

Cast – Shailene Woodley, Ben Mendelsohn, Jovan Adepo, Ralph Ineson

Plot – Troubled Baltimore police officer Eleanor (Woodley) is enlisted by FBI investigator Lammark (Mendelsohn) to aide his hunt for a serial killer that is responsible for a vicious New Years Eve murder spree. 

“He didn’t come here to die, and he does not want to be found”

Review by Eddie on 08/06/2023

Marking his first foray into the Hollywood system and his first venture back into the directors chair since his 2014 breakout hit Wild Tales, filmmaker Damián Szifron’s newest feature is an OK crime thriller that at times threatens to become something else as the more than capable Shailene Woodley and Ben Mendelsohn try their best to elevate a procedural that feels more like a budget Seven and Zodiac not so much a genre piece that is able to make its own mark. 

Starting out in a fairly startling and confronting way with a mystery shooter dispatching multiple victims during New Years Eve celebrations in the rugged city of Baltimore, Szifron isn’t afraid too take us to dark places in To Catch a Killer as we follow Woodley’s troubled but committed police officer Eleanor and Mendelsohn’s no fuss FBI investigator Lammark try and uncover the identity of the perpetrator and put a stop to any future killings but despite individual scenes that stick in the memory, Szifron’s film as a whole can’t stick the landing with either the mystery or the characters at the heart of the tale. 

Keeping a relatively low profile over recent years after seemingly becoming the next big thing in years prior, it’s good to see Woodley back and testing herself as the complicated Eleanor, an officer with her own troubles whose doing her best to keep her head above water and find ways to track a killer who clearly doesn’t want to be found and yet while Woodley and Mendelsohn as the under pressure Lammark share good chemistry, they’re both unable to give the film a central duo like the best of these type of films manage to gift us, making the whole investigational affair one that works on a surface level but nothing more. 

Instilling Wild Tales with a memorable amount of flair, energy and creativity, it’s not hard to see why Hollywood came knocking on Szifron’s door, making it a shame he wasn’t able to add that same amount of inventiveness to his English language debut with Killer feeling mostly like it could’ve been directed by any rent a director available at the time with there being little in the way of action, intrigue or narrative decisions we haven’t seen done before and anyone waiting for a knock them down twist or surprise likely to be very disappointed by a point A to B procession that feels like its bursting at the seems to become something more. 

There’s a great film somewhere in Killer, of that there is no doubt, but as it stands, this finished product that has already come and gone in some markets with little to no fanfare is merely a passable time waster, that in turn fails to maximise a solid premise, a talented cast and a colourful filmmaker who could all do so much more. 

Final Say – 

There have been a lot worse films of a similar ilk over recent times but considering the prestige behind To Catch a Killer, you’d be right in expecting a whole lot more from a film that threatens to but never delivers the way in which one would’ve hoped for. 

2 1/2 rubbish dumps out of 5