His character is mostly standard issue, but it’s a sturdy, accomplished turn, the kind that only he can do quite this well, yet his other two Oscar-winning co-stars struggle. As a slow, meditative character-driven drama, it’s too shallow and as a dark, disturbing serial killer thriller, it’s too boring and so quite who this film is for remains a bigger mystery than the one at its centre.Īs probably the most reliable leading man currently working in Hollywood, Washington can put a shine on even the dullest of material and while he’s no doubt stretched here, he avoids a mere sleepwalk and singlehandedly helps muster up just enough interest to drag us through. But at a time when even small-screen procedurals have perma-frowned detectives who spend more time haunted by their past than actually solving crimes in the present, it all feels a little too familiar and a little too minor. Maybe if Hancock’s film had been produced back in the early 90s, it would have at least felt like a more admirably serious-minded riposte to a sub-genre that often devolves into silliness. The story also interweaves with an unsolved case from Deke’s past as well as a local stranger (Jared Leto) who may or may not be involved. But when another young woman is murdered, he’s unable to resist, much to the chagrin of Jimmy (Rami Malek), the point guy on the case. Once a celebrated member of the force, with age he’s found himself pushed to the back, lumped with grunt work over anything more rewarding. In what feels like an adaptation of a potboiler but is actually an original story, deputy sheriff “Deke” (Denzel Washington) finds himself unavoidably dragged back into the thrust of a case he’s not supposed to be involved in (after an admittedly effective Silence of the Lambs-esque cold open). With elements of Seven and Zodiac in the mix, arguably the film it most resembles is Insomnia, both the Norwegian original and Christopher Nolan’s excellent remake, its very title recalling a key recurring line about focusing on the small things during an investigation (Hancock insists any comparisons are coincidental with the first draft of the script written back in 1993).
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