Psychologically brutal, but one note throughout

Rating: 8/10 (9 January 2016)

The movie is a bit long, at two hours, but it is a good movie, so I can let it slide. The acting is very good and the low note music is driving the mood of the film right into your soul. However, that note is the only one you will hear or feel throughout. What actually happens is just cementing the one and only idea of the film, that if you go high enough there is no justice, no morals and that reality is uglier than any of us want to know.
The story follows a character that is supposed to take us through the rabbit hole. As a competent cop, but completely outside the drug related action, she is the unknowing individual who will get her eyes open, thus opening ours. However I found it difficult to empathize with anything she did or said. She came off as a petulant girl, trying to ignore what was happening to her, desperately attempting to feel in control when she had none. That was deliberate, of course, as the movie reveals our own petulant yet powerless stance.
There is nothing else to be said, really. It is a slap in the face for people who still believe in the high ideals of justice for all or in some semblance of power over our lives, but a rather bland film for those who have already accepted there are no rules and they have no control.