Dark Crimes is a 2018 thriller about a murder investigation of a slain business man with clues found in an author’s book about an eerily similar crime.
It was in Ace Venture: Pet Detective where I first saw a small glimpse of the serious side of Jim Carrey. He of course went on to prove that he is more than capable of just absurd comedic roles, but he’s never quite established himself as a dramatic actor, despite how impressive he makes it look in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Despite that, I often wish he could be taken more seriously and while a recent documentary reveals a lot about some inner demons and what appears all the makings for a shift away from comedy, his new film Dark Crimes fails to give him the chance to really spread those wings.
A cop named Tadek (Carrey) is on the outs with the police, he a recently reinstated detective that is just barely keeping his job, his boss giving him easy work to keep a paycheck. His track record has left him with a history of failed investigations and his obsessive personality isolating him among colleagues. However, after he comes upon a new book by author Kozlow (Marton Csokas), he finds renewed interest as the novel details exactly a grisly unsolved murder he once investigated. Convinced he’s got his killer, Tadek angles on Kozlow to give up the ghost, though finds an adversary seeming waiting for such a contest, playing a bit of cat and mouse with the cop. This leads Tadek to Kozlow’s girlfriend, a mysterious woman named Kasia (Charlotte Gainsbourg), who draws the detective further down the rabbit hole.
With its all too generic title, it at least lives up to its name, the world Tadek navigates bleak and desperate. These are unlikable people and as such, he travels among a collection of ugliness that fits the themes well. It all kicks off with an S&M dungeon where cruelty is the name of the game and where a previous murder left Tadek spinning his wheels, the victim staged in a very specific way that has since left the detective more than a little haunted, bleeding into his personal and home life where all things are dark. This certainly gives the movie opportunity to explore the depths of Tadek’s mental and physical predicament, but it ends up so oppressive, it saps any life out of the experience.
As a psychological thriller, the potential is high, with a number of films in the genre that have set precedent on how to pit good versus evil in talky fashion, which Dark Crimes does try to capitalize on. However, while director Alexandros Avranas dips into some gore and violence, much of this is the face off between Tadek and Kozlow, which is mostly lacking urgency as Csokas can’t give the character any great presence. Carrey embraces the role with some expected vigor and his heavily-bearded, gruff appearance helps a lot in layering him with some significance, but ultimately, these exchanges are empty.
There’s an attraction many have to these kinds of films, with titles like Se7en a perfect example of how it can work as entertainment. As a crime thriller, Dark Crimes fails to truly find its groove, the relationships and contrivances not giving it the suspense of investigative fun it deserves. It instead works harder to be a tale of mental breakdown of sorts and surely, Carrey is up for the task, and his effort make this all the more disappointing that the film just can’t keep up with him.