New Year’s Eve Baltimore. The sky above the city shatters in a series of festive fireworks, and gunshots can be heard against their background below: An unknown person with Olympic shooter accuracy kills 29 people. There was nothing connecting the victims of the sniper – they were people of different ages, nationalities and social classes, but unlucky as they were all under his gun. And while the police are trying to quickly cope with the panic in the streets and find the location of the bombing, the apartment in which the criminal was operating explodes (he manages to get out himself).
Joining forces to catch a dangerous criminal, veteran FBI agent Jeffrey Lamarck (The Outsider and Oona’s brilliant Ben Mendelsohn), potential great detective Eleanor Falco (Shailene Woodley of Big Little Lies) and patrol and cop Mackenzie (‘Keepers’ Tan Jovan Adepo) “).
Now that they’ve caught the attention of not only top management, but also the frightened half-million city, the trio doesn’t have much time to find the shooter, who will definitely be armed again.
The director and screenwriter of The Misanthrope, Damian Sifron, made a name for himself in 2014 with the release of Wild Tales, an almanac of sarcastic, sarcastic and tragic short stories. The picture was first screened at the Cannes Film Festival, after which it received an Oscar nomination.
After a major international triumph, Mifrona sought to take over Hollywood – her first American movie would be a remake of the ’70s adventure drama The Six Million Dollar Man. But first, lead actor Mark Wahlberg left the project, and then Sifron himself – both said goodbye to the picture without explanation.
After that, the Argentine director remained silent for almost 10 long years, and meanwhile, his hit film “Wild Stories” did not get old, but gained new reading. The director worked with a variety of genres while applying the same formula in his high-profile project: comic and tragic juxtaposition, and beauty juxtaposed with ugliness.
So, in “Wild Stories” 6 exciting short stories were shown: about passengers that a person decides to deal with directly on the plane, about drivers who do not share the same route, about their confrontation (just like recently) “Gryzne”) turned from an inappropriate confrontation into a deadly fight. Finally, the story of the newlywed couple who arranges a stabbing in front of the shocked guests after learning that the groom had cheated on the bride.
Sifron, who apparently masterfully mastered his own material and skillfully placed accents in it, not only tried to blame the state machine for all its vulnerabilities, but also made a disappointing decision about people: very different, weird, and crazy.
And while “Wild Tales” portrays human tragedy in a variety of genres, “The Misanthrope” focuses on one thing – a chilly noir thriller. The picture does not waste itself in vain and stands firmly on its feet: a well-thought-out and famously distorted story about the good and evil of good and evil in the body. The movie inherits the genre’s recognizable screenplay tropes, but remains unpredictable until the end—even when all masks are dropped and rifles unloaded.
Sifron tries to put as much meat as possible into the bare bones of his story (for no reason the meat-eating theme on the tape has its own prominent place). “Micentrope” – accurately verified and thought out to the smallest detail, with its entire structure “from the head”, manages to submit to what comes from the heart in a timely manner. Thanks to this new harmony between the cool plot and the pure characters, the painting manages to avoid lifeless sketches.
Finding a similar couple for a movie would mean depriving her of her independent identity, but if you still draw parallels, then Misanthrope with the already venerable Denzel Washington and the still very young Angelina to the cult thriller The Power of Fear of the late ’90s. is the closest. jolie. Both films are based on an unlikely duo of seasoned pros and promising newcomers. In both films, there is a race against time, and the only source of danger is a mysterious villain whose next murder can be prevented only by understanding the personality of the criminal and allowing him to be a person and not a function.
Things are even better with the believable subjectivity of the characters in The Misanthrope: here not only do the protagonists acquire their autonomous voice, but also the person they are desperately pursuing. Sifron does not romanticize the villain, but tries to understand his motives.
As a result, the author makes a decision for everyone: let only one person pull the trigger (there are no excuses for this), hunted him down and deprived him of support – society. In Sifron’s seasoned hands, the simple notion that evil grows out of almost nothing acquires a tense plot that, like an accurate shooter, clearly knows the course of his shot and the ultimate goal.
Cold (because of the season on the screen), but emotionally fervent (due to the excellent acting duo of Mendelssohn and Woodley), it turned out to be a thriller that reminded us of what the main value of this genre is: in suspense this is our strength, it replaces everything necessary for catharsis in us. took.