A grisly, visceral hard-boiled thriller with a superb ending

Rating: 8/10 (20 May 2016)

This is a perfect example where a movie is good and/or got better due to its ending. Three-quarters of the whole film is pretty much stock standard crime, mystery thriller and the "senior-rookie" relationship between the characters that Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt portray is straightforward but not generic and narrow-minded since their chemistry is so natural. The reason for the latter is that the character, Mills while impulsive, his short-tempered and foul-mouth personality doesn't detract his presence and overall viewing experience of the movie. He's kept in check by William; the archetypal "calm and collected veteran" but during moments like these, they actually have interesting, contrasting discussions in how they see the world, the people and the crimes within a detective's perspective. The film sets up so they avoid Mills' emotional outcries as the focus of the scene which I appreciate. It makes Mills a more multi-dimensional character because we can clearly see him and William are presented as different people on the surface. But the film takes an effort to establish how they're different.
The actual methods and scenes of the murders are indeed quite graphic but the most effective and disturbing one takes place at the end. It's the classic case of not showing that makes it more frightening because it's when our endless imagination takes stage. Speaking of the ending, the reason I view it with high praise is because it's not phoned in and artificial. The film put in some key clues in earlier scenes to justify the killer's methods validly. Its impact is strengthen by the fact that the serial killer is shown quite early and the film uses the remaining sequences well to establish the character. Of course, the actor that plays the killer at the end puts on a a remarkable, chilling performance that only makes the last quarter of the movie better. Normally, the 'mystery' aspect to a film like this would be gone and thus detract our enjoyment (Julia's Eyes is an example that it did) but it didn't for me because we're clearly more interested by the end of WHY the killer kills. It's a natural, organic progression when we're all sucked in to the elaborate ways that the victims are killed at the start. While the actual killer's motivations is a little simple- minded and its all explained in one convenient scene, I just love how the VERY last sequence of the movie refused to venture on a black-and-white "good guys beat bad guys" type of ending and sticked to its guns on what the film is about by using the killer as the subtext.
Overall, I enjoyed this modern hard-boiled flick and the only problems I had with the movie is that its a little too reliant on the ending to be a deciding factor on whether or not you would enjoy this picture. Lastly, when I referred to the killer's intentions as slightly one-sided, I felt like it was a bit self-indulgent at times and wasn't all-encompassing enough when the film needed to foreshadow more on its underlying message during sections of the film before the killer was revealed. We only see a few glimpses from the interactions between Freeman and Pitt as well as the dark, grim setting (neo-noir) portrayed in the movie but I need more still. I thought if the film executed on the "why" part of the killings a bit better and not just "how" (which I already explained it's done admirably) then it would've easily pushed my rating from a 8.5/10 to a 9 or higher.