A Polish cop reopens a cold murder case after he finds
​new clues in an author's book about a similar crime.

CRIME/DRAMA

Dark Crimes (2016)

Directed by Alexandros Avranas

Written by Jeremy Brock

Starring Jim Carrey, Martin Csokas, Charlotte Gainsbourg,
Vlad Ivanov, Robert Wieckiewicz, Agata Kulesza, Kati Outinen

​Based on the article by David Grann

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Connor Eyzaguirre

May 20, 2020

4/10

Where do I even start with this train wreck? Dark Crimes has zero substance, zero likable characters, and absolutely no compelling narrative whatsoever. Apart from a decent lead performance from Jim Carrey, there's virtually nothing positive to say about this one. It's simply a mess from start to finish. So many avenues explored, so many subplots, and yet nothing works. The worst part is this was based on a true story, one that sounds like it would make a neat movie. Maybe, if it was in better hands.

Carrey plays Tadek, a grizzled, by the book, disgraced Polish police officer who stumbles onto a cold murder case of a businessman who frequented a local brothel. Tadek finds an unpublished novel by Kozlov (Csokas), a novel that has nearly the exact details of the murder, details that were never made public. Now Kozlov is Tadek's prime suspect and he will go to great lengths to put him away. There's very little set-up, and then once the film gets going, it veers in so many different directions that by the time Kozlov confesses, we don't care anymore. And at the end, the film tries to pull a Presumed Innocent on you and say it was the girlfriend the whole time. Also, she may have killed Jim Carrey. Who knows? It's unclear.

Dark Crimes doesn't have enough going for it to be worth talking about. It's pretty deserving of that 0% Rotten Tomatoes score. Carrey does his best to make something out of this, but his strengths obviously lie in comedy. He's too subdued in dramas. What really kills this one is the many subplots that keep distracting you from the main plot. Police corruption, affairs, marrital strife, and so on. It's enough to keep you away from this one, that's for sure.