As soon as I saw that giant brand new red hair barrette, I had a real strong feeling it was not the real item. Other things that bugged me included Baxter digging all those holes, and yeah, if the killings stopped, they both would have known they got the right guy, so why bother with the barrette?

@MongoLloyd said:

As soon as I saw that giant brand new red hair barrette, I had a real strong feeling it was not the real item. Other things that bugged me included Baxter digging all those holes, and yeah, if the killings stopped, they both would have known they got the right guy, so why bother with the barrette?

That's a good point. I'm not sure about Malek's character's thought process:

"He was trolling me when he showed me those two other digging spots, but surely this third spot is the right one! Also he looks like a real upstanding citizen, even though I suspect he is a serial killer, so I should have no concerns about him walking behind me un-restrained with my back turned to him."

Right. Here's a guy so snooty, he was having a fellow LEO's car towed, rather than simply having the guy move his car, but the already evasive perp has him eating out of his hand. Makes total sense.

I thought the twist would be deeper like one of the cops is the killer. Also, Malek is smart enough to know that just because he found the red hair clip it could have been one just sent to cheer him up. Or it's possibly not the one in question. Splitting hairs because I really loved the performances (even Leto's strange walk).

I have to admit, Leto's body language and gait was my favorite part of the movie. He's awesome.

Agree on all points. It's a shame because the movie clearly aspired to be better than its end result, and I applaud that ambition. As Steve says, the performances are good. I think the script itself wasn't quite up to scratch (with weird anomalies like those described above) and the direction and editing were also subpar I felt. Crime thriller is a favourite genre of mine, so really disappointed this didn't itch the scratch, but oh well! Nice to see Denzel in anything really....

Are you guys saying it's not worth a watch? Will I feel upset in the end?

It’s totally worth the watch!

@therapist said:

Are you guys saying it's not worth a watch? Will I feel upset in the end?

It's not a bad movie at all, but I'd say that the ending (the last five or so minutes) is significantly worse than the rest of the movie and just feels out of place. Apart from that an easy and pretty solid watch, although if you've read the thread there may not be much to see and you may want to let it sit until you've forgotten the spoilers mentioned here. By the way if you want something that is somewhat similar "The Pledge" with Jack Nicholson is kind of in the same vein and in my opinion has a better ending too.

Oh it's definitely worth watching, but as mentioned, they got lazy with the ending.