Escalating horrors for the sake of escalating horrors

Rating: 6/10 (3 December 2005)

I found the film dreary. Slow paced between the action scenes, and the action usually pretty prosaic...though well-shot The usual flotillas of cop cars on the chase, the gun pursuits through city slums etc. Morgan Freeman had a glum life, downer life-style, but was too little of his life and charm was revealed to make us care. Brad Pitt was brash, and affectionate. Kevin Spacey was Kevin Spaceyily good. The murders seemed set-pieces of gruesomeness..unmoving - aside from the last - because there was no sense of the humanity of the victims. Good gruesomeness is possible - e.g The Silence of the Lambs, a brilliantly characterized film.