The Postcard Killings: Oscar-Winning Danis Tanovic Takes on James Patterson

They carefully select their victims, but they still manage to pick the daughter of an experienced serial killer hunting police detective. Unfortunately, it takes forever for the kneejerk anti-American Euro cops to take his advice seriously. People will die in the interim, but dogged Jacob Kanon will never stop hunting his daughters’ murderers in Danis Tanovic’s The Postcard Killings, based on the co-authored James Patterson novel, which opens tomorrow in New York.

It was Det. Kanon who bought the London honeymoon for his daughter and her newlywed husband, so he takes the grotesque circumstances of their murder especially hard. Some unknown perpetrator posed them in a grisly manner that resembles a famous painting. Actually, identifying the artistic sources of their inspiration will be one of the insights Kanon brings to the investigation.

Of course, the British copper in charge of the case initially tries to keep him at arm’s length, but the particularly public nature of the border-crossing killing spree makes it increasingly difficult for the multi-nation task force to refuse his specialized expertise. Before each killing, a local journalist is sent a cryptic postcard and afterwards they receive a horrific photo of the crime scene. It is unclear how the journalists are selected. None of them regularly cover the crime beat, but expat human interest-writer Dessie Leonard would like to transfer to harder news, so she agrees to work with Kanon to get the inside track on the story.

It might surprise some film snobs that Bosnian filmmaker Danis Tanovic, who won the best Foreign Language Oscar (as it was then called) for No Man’s Land, would helm a straight-up serial killer thriller. Yet, this is the same Tanovic who directed the Pakistan-set whistleblower expose Tigers, so he clearly has an affinity for transnational drama. In fact, he executes the lurid crimes with operatic flair.

However, the story itself is rather standard issue stuff. Generally speaking, Patterson’s collaborations features two types of co-authors, up-and-coming crime novelists, which should include Swedish Postcard co-author Liza Marklund (who co-adapted their novel with Andrew Stern), and inconsequential hacks (like a nobody named Bill Clinton, whoever that might be). Maybe something was lost in the page-to-screen transfer, but we have seen everything here many times before.

Primal: Hunting Big Game with Nic Cage

Nic Cage famously bought two albino king cobras, a Mongolian dinosaur skull, and the reportedly haunted LaLaurie mansion in New Orleans, so it figures he would have an affinity for a hunter who bags a rare white jaguar. However, this hunter-trapper is motivated by mercenary motive rather than a collector’s impulse. Yet, he is not the worst passenger on this slow boat to danger in Nick Powell’s Primal, which releases today on DVD.

Frank Walsh briefly worked at ten zoos before finding his calling as a freelance trapper and seller of rare computer-generated beasts. When he bags the fabled white jag, he sees nothing but dollar signs, but getting it to his transfer point in Mexico will require some off-the-books transit. The dodgy freighter, the Mimer, is his paperwork-free ship of choice, but this time he will have company. The U.S. Marshall Service must transport an apprehended cartel assassin out of Brazil fast, before the government reverts back old 1970s methods of criminal justice. Uncle Sam wants to try Richard Loffler legally, but he has a rare neurologically condition that precludes air-flight.

Naturally, Loffler soon escapes and turns loose Walsh’s beasts to distract his former captors. The white jag is the deadliest of the menagerie, but there are also two venomous snakes unaccounted for. Right, Primal is a lot like Snakes on a Plane on a boat, with Nic Cage thrown in for extra irony. That could be decently entertaining, but screenwriter Richard Leder goes out of its way to tell us the U.S. military trained Loffler to kill, offering him up as a simple-minded microcosm of American foreign policy. Inevitably, the secret bad guy turns out to be an NSA agent, which makes no sense, since the NSA specializes in electronic intel rather than field work. Seriously, if you’re going to slander than American intelligence community, you should at least take the trouble to slime the right agency.

Ron Perlman is Asher

Sure, the pay is great, but hitmen do not have any benefits. You have to build your nest egg without any matching contributions and your medical is 100% co-pay. These things start to matter when you get to be Asher’s age. He doesn’t think he is going anywhere, but his body is not so sure in Michael Caton-Jones’s Asher (trailer here), which opens today in New York.

Frankly, Asher would not have lasted this long if he were not so lethally effective at his job. However, his latest assignment got a little complicated. A hot day combined with an out-of-order elevator leads to a fainting spell he recovers from in Sophie’s apartment. Of course, she has no idea he is there to kill her neighbor, but his gruff, socially awkward behavior will make her think twice when he returns to ask her out. Nevertheless, she is curious enough to eventually accept, at which point they start to click.

Arguably, this is the perfect time for Asher to get serious about a relationship and ease out of the business. His former protégé has been getting all the really choice contracts lately. However, it hard for a cat like Asher to change his ways. Unfortunately, that also means Sophie could be at risk when a dodgy assignment he was talked into taking turns into a full-blown vendetta.

Asher is a relatively small, unassuming film, with a little bit Tarantino style action, but it works on its own level. In some ways, it could be considered Ron Perlman’s Gran Torino or Harry Brown, in which he contemplates his own mortality within the sort of off-center genre film that he is certainly no stranger to. He was probably born to be Asher, but he plays the part with surprising restraint—and even a little bit of soul.

Famke Janssen is also terrific as Sophie, portraying her as smart, seductive, and vulnerable, as well as a little naïve. She and Perlman develop some pleasantly easy-going chemistry together. On the other hand, it is depressing to see Jacqueline Bissett cast as yet another dementia-troubled mother. In fact, the side-plot involving Sophie’s mom Dora threatens to drag the film down the same unrewarding narrative path as Grace Quigley (Katharine Hepburn’s final big-screen star vehicle), but Caton-Jones pulls it out of that nose-dive.

In fact, Caton-Jones has the right touch for this material, maintaining a vibe that is dark and serious, yet somehow also light. Despite all of Asher’s brooding and seething, the film moves along at a spritely tempo. This is not a monumental cinematic statement, but it is an entertaining (yet surprisingly honest) film that Perlman’s fans will particularly enjoy. Essentially, it is grittier than The Hitman’s Bodyguard, but more humanistic than Schneider vs. Bax. Recommended fans of Perlman and hitman comedies, Asher opens today (12/7) in New York, at the Cinema Village.