My expectations were subverted

Rating: 5/10 (18 February 2020)

This is a really odd movie to review. On the one hand, I was on the edge of my seat the first half-ish of the movie - I was really into the plot and trying to "figure out" what the twist or payoff was going to be - only to find the second half to be mostly a disappointment. The main problem comes when it is revealed, half way into the movie, how/who the killer was and then the last half of the movie is just seeing the behind the scenes lead-up to that event and then the fallout.
The reason it was disappointing to me was because in this genre of movie/storytelling there is always a moment of "AH! it was so and so in the Library with the dagger" and this movie doesn't have that, at all. Which is odd, since this is the genre Johnson went with. Which, i'm sure, was precisely the genre he wanted. It's just a weird mix of a murder mystery drama but without the "guessing game" payoff.
It's like Rian went into this movie and said, "I know what you expect from this genre, and so i'm going to play off of that and not give you what you expect from this movie, which will make it really fresh and different!" Well, yes, you succeeded in making it different than other murder mysteries....but why? Now it's just a poorly done murder mystery.