[yasr_overall_rating]
A homicide detective teams up with a criminal profiler to catch a serial killer whose crimes are inspired by the children’s game Hangman.
Watching a screen legend like Al Pacino be reduced to B-movie status is just painful. The same goes for Robert De Niro, and, for the most part, pretty much any of the iconic film stars from the ’70s and ’80s that I grew up with. Harrison Ford has always been my favorite actor but even his larger-than-life screen persona has been diminished with such dreck as “Paranoia,” “Morning Glory,” “Extraordinary Measures,” and “Crossing Over.” I’m sure many of you haven’t even heard of those titles and the same goes for Pacino, his most recent outings include titles such as “The Pirates of Somalia,” “The Humbling,” “Righteous Kill,” and the less we say about “Jack and Jill,” the better. De Niro has followed the exact same path and it appears nowadays they are all about the paycheck rather than giving an actual performance. Personally, the last time both Pacino and De Niro were watchable, was in 1995 in Michael Mann’s “Heat,” in which they both co-starred, everything since then has been a forgettable blur.
In “Hangman,” Pacino plays Detective Ray Archer, a cop who has just retired after 35 years working in homicide. Detective Will Ruiney (Karl Urban) was his partner for many years and when he is dispatched to a crime scene in which the body of a young woman is found hanging outside a school, he makes his way inside the building and discovers both his badge number and that of Archer’s, etched into a desk. When more hanged bodies begin piling up, all following the exact same method of operation, Ray comes back to assist Will. Accompanying them on their case is Christi Davies (Brittany Snow), a local investigative reporter who is writing a piece on what it’s like to be a cop in this day and age. So far so good but unfortunately, the rest of the movie is cliché after cliché. The person committing the crimes always manages to stay one step ahead of them until they realize they’re dealing with a cop but then later in the story, we find out that they aren’t actually law enforcement but that Ray was part of a case many years ago in which a man hanged himself in front of his young son and instead of taking care of the boy, Ray got on with his life, like anybody would do. Now, however, on the anniversary of his father’s death, the grown-up son seeks revenge against Ray for not looking after him.
The story is so utterly confusing and forgettable that about halfway through, you find yourself scratching your head, trying to comprehend exactly what transpired during the first half and by the time you think you’ve figured that out, the movie is over. It tries to incorporate ideas and tropes from other, far superior movies like “The Silence of the Lambs,” “Se7en,” and “Manhunter,” but fails miserably as a pale imitation. Pacino looks bored and his acting is one of the worst aspects of the movie. At least Karl Urban and Brittany Snow make an effort and in the process, shame the once great legend. In 2019, Pacino, De Niro, Joe Pesci, Harvey Keitel, Ray Romano, Jesse Plemons, and Anna Paquin will all appear in Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman,” about a mob hitman and his possible involvement with the slaying of Jimmy Hoffa and with Scorsese at the helm, here’s hoping he’ll be able to resuscitate all of their careers.
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