To Catch a Killer
Came out; 2023
Time; 1 hr 59 min
Watched: Hulu
Rated: R for strong violent content and language throughout
IMDB Rating; 6.6/10
Caution; Spoiler Alert
Staring.
Shailene Woodley as Eleanor
Ben Mendelsohn as Lammark
Jovan Adepo as Jack McKenzie
Ralph Ineson as Dean
Richard Zeman as Frank Graber
Dusan Dukic as Krupp
Jason Cavalier as Marquand
Story Line.
Baltimore. New Year's Eve. A talented but troubled police officer (Shailene Woodley) is recruited by the FBI's chief investigator (Ben Mendelsohn) to help profile and track down a disturbed individual terrorizing the city.
Thoughts:
The feel of this movie was dark and Gothic. It really showed real life vs a stylized version.
The movie was very well put together, from the randomness of the killings to the hunt for the killer and all the things we don't see in the background of law enforcement. It had great LGBTQ+ theme stuck in between and was a great all together movie.
The killer was front and center and although it took a minute to get an actual feel on what was happening you could feel yourself being sucked in the middle of it.
CAUTION; Major Spoiler Alert
It
is New Year's Eve in 2022, and the city of Baltimore is complete with
people partying in their apartments or just going about their
business. Amidst this chaos, as soon as a round of fireworks goes
out, 17 people are shot dead with bullets flying out of nowhere at
multiple locations. On the other side of the town, Eleanor Falco
(Shailene Woodley), a police officer, is trying to settle a meager
squabble at a diner involving an alcoholic homeless woman who refuses
to leave the diner when she is paged to reach one of the sites of the
shooting.
Eleanor arrives at the site, and the police
ascertain that all the bullets have been fired from a certain 17th
floor apartment in the neighborhood. It is at the precise moment of
this discovery the apartment blows up, sending a shock wave of panic
among the other residents in the building. All the police personnel
immediately rush to the site of destruction. Eleanor, along with one
of her colleagues, stands outside the building recording videos of
the fleeing residents. There was a possibility that the culprit was
in the crowd.
Soon, the police and the FBI reach the site and
find no trace of the perpetrator. Eleanor, who had by this time
climbed the stairs to the 17th floor without a gas mask while resting
against one of the walls of the apartment due to ill health, manages
to hint at investigating the toilet for any possible evidence of the
shooter.
Back at the police station, the chief FBI
investigator, Geoffrey Lammark (Ben Mendelsohn), arrives and briefs
the department about the task they have at hand - finding out the
mass shooter - and explains the things they need to keep in mind
while carrying on investigations. He particularly fancies Eleanor,
who is prompt to tell him that the shooter is unlikely to strike
again and why.
We get an insight into the lonely life of
Eleanor as she returns home that night. However, very early the next
morning, she is summoned by Lammark. The latter insists that she
assist him in this case because her thought process would be
insightful, and she could also serve as the link between the
Baltimore Police Department and the FBI in this investigation. Here,
they meet Jack Mackenzie (Jovan Adepo), another FBI agent who would
be following them closely in finding the shooter. What follows is a
lot of brainstorming among the three as they try to understand the
possible motive of the attack or the reason why it took place. We
also understand that Lammark is under huge duress from the FBI
authorities to successfully find the shooter.
While Eleanor,
Mammark and Mackenzie are still trying to figure out who the killer
is, the investigators have narrowed it down to a teenage boy - who
has confined himself to his room and watches ISIS videos - as their
primary suspect. They proceed to zero down on him, despite Lammark's
orders. Unfortunately, the boy jumps out of his bedroom window and
dies in the process.
As the authorities press upon Lammark to
find the shooter, he invites Eleanor home and introduces her to his
husband... revealing himself to be a closeted homosexual. Lammark
also confronts Eleanor about her FBI rejection, citing psychiatric
issues such as depression as the reason. She confesses that she took
up a job in the police force to save her from her own
self-destructive tendencies.
A few days later, another
horrific incident takes place. In a shopping mall, a man is seen
stealing the clothes of a guy from the male changing room and washing
it clean in the sink area of the toilet. Another man spots him in the
act and informs the mall security guards about this unaccepted
behavior, who try to trace the stranger down. When they finally find
him, he is stealing food at the food court. As the guards tried to
ask him to leave, the man pulls out a gun and shoots the people
around him dead. He escapes from the rest of the police, who are
after him, by blowing them up with grenades planted in a nearby
dustbin. Lammark and Eleanor reach the place shortly afterward and
are horrified by the nonchalance of the man.
The news spreads
like wildfire. The FBI takes down a group of local NRA members who
support gun violence in another attempt at finding the perpetrator.
In the course of the investigation, Lammark and Eleanor come to
believe that the shooter has access to old guns and military
equipment, and the lab stool result shows that the man was on a
plant-based diet in the days following up to New Year's Eve. However,
the authorities at this point have lost confidence in Lammark and his
team after the second attempt at crackdown and both Lammark and
Eleanore are removed from investigating the case any further.
Subsequently, a realization strikes Eleanor, which finally leads her
to the culprit. A man named Dean Possey (Ralph Ineson).
Throughout
the whole movie, the detectives at work come to identify the primary
traits of this man - a white guy, not a meat eater, and someone with
access to old military weapons. Luckily, one of the men who painted
the apartment that originally blew up provides a facial sketch of
Possey and directs them to search at a meat processing factory around
where he was previously employed.
Eleanor and Lammark find out
about Dean from the older employees at a slaughterhouse and learn
that Dean is believed to have killed one of his superiors, who was
also a bully to him. This led to his imprisonment for two years
before he was released on parole in December 1999. Possey's father,
Sergeant Arthur Possey, was the shooting instructor of the 75th
Rangers, and Dean's parole had been supported by letters written by
two of his father's army friends. Eleanor and Lammark try to dig
deeper into his past only to understand that he has no credit cards
in his name, no home address, and no social security number,
rendering him the qualities of a ghost in today's world.
After
arriving at Mrs. Possey's house, she briefs him about how Dean was
injured in the head by two bullets during his childhood and how he
started despising the world around him as he grew up and became
extremely introverted, so much that he was overjoyed when everyone
was locked up at home during the COVID pandemic of
2020-2021.
Eleanor spots two cups of tea and a flannel shirt
hanging from the clothes stand, ultimately realizing that Dean Possey
may be hiding in the outhouse. While they can't contact the force by
any means, someone from the neighborhood possibly reports to the
police about gunshots - one that Dean uses to kill Lammark and
another that Mrs. Possey shoots herself in the head. Dean then
emerges from the outhouse and confronts Eleanor, but does not shoot
her.
When conversing with Eleanor, Dean Possey confesses that
it made sense to him to shoot 200+ people because human beings made a
lot of noise, appreciating fireworks display year after year. Dean
wishes for there to be fewer lights so that one can see the stars. He
appeared to be generally angry at the world, at the capitalist and
cruel systems that prevail in society, from working 12-hour shifts to
be recognized in the country to killing cows for making burger
patties.
Moreover, Dean feels observed at all times,
constantly needing to be recognized or earn money to survive in the
world. He doesn't seem to have any remorse when he says that if he
couldn't find peace in the world, he could at least deliver
retribution. Dean also denied feeling like 'love' could save him
because he had already traversed too far down the road of unhappiness
and crimes. It is likely that Dean Possey is suffering from a chronic
mental illness which led him to commit these crimes in cold
blood.
Dean injures Eleanor in the head and holds her captive
in the outhouse as he prepares to take down the police, killing the
first two and blowing up several officers when they tried to move
closer to the outhouse. Eleanor initially tries to rationalize with
him, failing at which she bites Dean in the throat and tears some of
the flesh, injuring him. Dean walks away into the night with his
guns. Eleanor desperately frees herself and instructs the police
about Dean's whereabouts. They finally spot Dean and kill him in a
hail of bullets.
The FBI negotiates with Eleanor to keep quiet
about Dean Possey's death in a police encounter as not to bring about
negative publicity to the department over them killing a suspect
instead of taking him into custody for trial. Eleanor is made a
special agent at the FBI, and they also agree to honor Lammark's
contributions with a medal of valor and direct all his pensions to
his husband. The movie ends with a shot of Eleanor walking down the
streets of the busy city.
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