For
some reason, the real life Polish police detective named Jacek Wrobelowski, or “Jack
Sparrow” as his colleagues waggishly point out, has been renamed a more
pedestrian Tadek. Perhaps more understandably, they water-down the
post-modernist criticism and theorizing his investigation inspired. Instead, director
Alexandros Avranas and screenwriter Jeremy Brock make lurid sex tediously dull
in Dark Crimes (trailer here), which opens this
Friday in New York.
According
to the credits, Dark Crimes is based
on “True Crime: A Postmodern Murder Mystery,” written by David Grann, author of
nonfiction book adapted as The Lost City of Z. However, basically only the fundamental premise remains recognizable.
The middle-aged Tadek starts investigating literary bad boy Kozlow, because
there are details of a real-life murder in his American Psycho-like novel that only the police and the killer
would know (just like Krystian Bala’s Amok).
In
the film, the author and the victim were often patrons of a rather notorious
sex club ominously named The Cage. It was there Kozlow met Kasia, a drug-addicted
and much-abused employee, who became the mother of his daughter. Turning her
could be the key to Tadek’s case, but he has more to worry about than the media-savvy
Kozlow. Gregor, the original investigating officer, has since been appointed chief
of police. Not surprisingly, he wants to keep the cold case ice cold.
Grann’s
original article is fascinating, but none of the interesting parts made the
transition into this film, which is just stupid and boring. Admittedly, it does
not help that Jim Carrey is wildly miscast as Tadek. At least Marton Csokas
chews the scenery as like the Devil Incarnate as Kozlow, but Avranas has so
thoroughly stacked the deck against him with all the sexual creepiness, it
makes it impossible to follow the film when it invites us to transfer our
rooting interest from cop to accused. However, it is really frustrating to see
the great Charlotte Gainsbourg playing the degrading role Kasia (it is so
humiliating, she has to have rough sex with Jim Carrey).
Basically,
Brock’s adaptation tries to rewrite the recent history so well-established in
Grann’s article, but for what conceivable purpose? Frankly, his mytho-adaptation
is riddled with sins, including questionable motivations, weak causal
relationships, and excessive slack. However, at least we can say Carrey is
funny again, for the first time in years. He is trying to be intense and
brooding, but he looks hilariously uncomfortable every second of the film. That
is not much, but its all Dark Crimes has.
Not recommended under any circumstance, Dark
Crimes opens this Friday (5/18) in New York, at the Cinema Village.
