John Lee Hancock is a director/writer I really like, but this feels like the project he couldn’t let go of. He wrote it in 1993 when David Fincher had only done music videos and ALIEN3. After he couldn’t get it made, because it was too dark, Fincher comes out with films like SE7EN and ZODIAC over the course of 30 years. I feel like Hancock couldn’t let this go and needed to show people the story he wrote before the Fincher crime films. This is just my speculation, but it feels accurate to me. As such the film feels like it covers ground we’ve already been on. The final moments are played similar to the end of SE7EN and everything leading up to it feels like ZODIAC. I did not care for Jared Leto’s performance. It is weirdly scene-chewing while being muted at the same time. I think he thinks he is playing a good creep, but it just played a bit cartoony. It kinda felt like, "How would Nic Cage play this without the yelling?" Additionally his character’s motivations only work to service the ending of the film. Another thing I just don’t buy is that Rami Malek is playing a guy named James “Jimmy” Baxter. It feels like such an Irish name which is not how Malek is portrayed. Why didn’t they change the character’s name? It would have been so easy to do.
