Excellent Performances in Nice Thriller

Rating: Null/10 (2 February 2017)

Split (2017)
*** (out of 4)
James McAvoy plays a man with twenty-three different personalities who kidnaps three young girls and holds them hostage in an unknown location.
Normally I offer up more more of a plot description but the less you know about this film the better you'll enjoy it. M. Night Shyamalan's SPLIT is certainly a very interesting movie that clearly seems to have been inspired by the various Brian De Palma thrillers that he directed throughout his career. I had a couple major issues with the film but there's still no doubt that the director-writer is back on top of his game in this well-made and at times tense thriller.
What I enjoyed most about the film should come as no surprise. James McAvoy really gets to shine in this film as you'd expect since he plays so many different characters. I'm not going to spoil all of the personalities but it was really amazing getting to see a talented actor play a chess match and come up with the various different personalities and bringing little touches to each of them. There are a few scenes where the actor is forced to go from one character to another in the matter of seconds and he perfectly nails it. There's no question that he brings a wide range of emotions as there are times where you feel bad for him and other times where he's downright creepy to say the least. All of the supporting cast are good but Ana Taylor Joy deserves a special mention.
The screenplay most takes place inside this unknown location where we see the three girls being stalked by one personality after another. The film exits the location a couple times including introducing us to the man's doctor who is trying to control the personalities as well as some flashback scenes dealing with the main girl's childhood. It's here where I think the film makes it's biggest mistake. I don't mind anything that's in the actual film but it ends up running at a 118-minutes and I thought this was a bit too long and slow. I think everything in the film could have worked much better with a faster pace and perhaps a tighter editing job.
With that said, there's no question that SPLIT holds your attention throughout and yes, there's that ending, which I certainly won't spoil here but I found it to be excellent. It's great that Shyamalan is back and doing such fine work and I really can't wait to see what he does next.