Dark Crimes review: Jim Carrey stars in bland crime story
By Matt Conway
Despite a solid performance from Jim Carrey, Dark Crimes is a dour and dull crime thriller that lacks substance.
After two decades as an A-list comedic actor, Jim Carrey has sort-of fallen off the face of the earth. That’s not to say Carrey hasn’t been involved in interesting projects, rather he has chosen to involve himself in more independent fare. He was also the subject of Jim and Andy: The Great Beyond, which is one of the best documentaries of recent memory.
Carrey is back in the spotlight in Dark Crimes, which has been sitting on the shelve for nearly two years. The film follows Tadek, a detective who takes on a case involving a murdered businessman. When he starts to piece the clues together, he realizes that this murder shares a shocking similarity to a recent book that was published.
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I was surprised to learn that Dark Crimes premiered two years ago, but after watching the film it makes a lot more sense. It’s a dreadfully dull crime thriller that wastes the potential of its intriguing narrative.
Credit is given where its due, as Jim Carrey does a solid job in the leading role as Tadek. Carrey has flirted with dramatic performances before, but this performances is perhaps his darkest yet. He disappears into the role seamlessly and fully commits to the role of a detective who obsessively looks for answers.
Aside from Carrey, there is very little positives to note about this movie. Director Alxeandros Avranas does very little to make his film stand out among its contemporaries, with the film’s drab color pallet being its only stylistic quirk. Avranas also struggles to drive his narrative forward, with the meandering pace not doing the story any favors. Despite so much of the film focused on such dark subject matter, Avranas is unable to make most of these moments feel unsettling, with the story being derived of any dramatic tension.
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Jeremy Brock’s screenplay doesn’t do much better. While the set-up has some inherent interest, Brock writers his characters in a very surface-level way, with the audience never understanding these people and what makes them tick. The film lacks any meaningful substance, with Brock’s very flat adaptation of a supposed “true story” failing to develop a perspective.
Dark Crimes biggest crime, however, is it’s just a slog to sit through. There are some relatively competent aspects about the movie, yet it’s never able to effect the audience the way that it should. Hopefully, Jim Carrey can find more promising dramatic roles going forward.