The long way back

Rating: 5/10 (6 April 2017)

Shyamalan can't find his way back home. The slow burning thriller formula that gave him success with gems such us "The sixth sense" or "Signs" is lost in the tides of a distant past, tides that have made the Indian director drift away into a sea of mediocrity.
In "Split" he tries to bring back some of those traits that defined his early works. He reaches for a clever horror thriller, but all his efforts produce nothing but an average "psycho kidnaps girls" movie with delusions of greatness. What promised to be a thoughtful journey through human mind finally develops into a watered-down showcase of Kevin's multiple personalities, having barely two of them some impact on the story.
Kudos to James McAvoy for single handedly keeping afloat a movie that tries so hard to sink. His outstanding performance might be the only thing keeping viewers in their seats until the film's finale, which makes as little sense as the erratic and incoherent behavior of the three girls during the whole kidnapping. Betty Buckley manages to deliver a satisfactory portrait of Dr. Karen Fletcher amongst a very little cast where the rest of the actors (and specially actresses) do a terrible job.
It may well be time for Shyamalan to find the way to travel the long way back he seems to have started with "Split", or give a shot to something completely new, but this generic approach on horror clichés (like in this film or "The Visit") won't satisfy his fans.