This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
alex todd 🧟♂️’s review published on Letterboxd:
This review may contain spoilers.
i can’t even tell you how excited i was for this film. a whodunnit with an insanely good cast, that’s straight-up my shit. but apparently i’m the only one who saw how stupid this film actually is.
spoilers:
the film decides to solve the murder in the most boring way possible within like 30 minutes, clearly setting up for a twist. so you take away the mystery and replace it with the suspect trying to get away with the murder while the family try to take back everything that was left in the will to ana de armas’ character. could be interesting right? well it wasn’t. we just see her rely on chris evans’ character the whole time. there is the side mystery of who payed detective whatever-his-name-is but it’s not at the forefront and is only brought back up at the end. and there’s the mystery of who’s blackmailing whatever-her-name-is but neither of these mysteries feel important enough to have you racking your brain. i mean i get that it’s a different take on the genre but instead of making it compelling to watch it just makes it frustrating to watch.
now onto the last 10 minutes. they were atrocious. it’s revealed that chris evans was actually the killer and to the films credit the evidence was all there. but this 10 minute exposition spillage had some stupid shit in it. firstly the “hugh did this to me” line is ridiculous and i don’t have to explain why. when she lies about what’s-her-name being dead is also one of the stupidest things i’ve seen, she literally says on the phone that’s great news and how did she even know that would make him confess. and chris evans stabs ana de armas with a fake knife and being easily arrested is just anticlimactic.
i still enjoyed the film to some extent but i can’t say it’s great storytelling-wise.
