Funny how the reputation of Dario Argento - one of Seventies' masters of horror - keeps attracting respectable actors like Max Von Sydow, Thomas Kretschmann, Liam Cunningham and Rutger Hauer, no matter how atrocious the director's late-career efforts have been.
Here the one badly slumming is Adrien Brody in a double role as both a veteran detective and the serial killer he is hunting down, the titular Giallo. It's the kind of performance which should balance out his magnificent turn in the Pianist and make the Academy retire his Best Actor Award.
The movie is embarrassing, worthless, hilarious. It's Uwe Boll bad - except from Boll himself that would be legitimate; from someone like Argento, it's tragic. People snipe at John Carpenter, another titan of the Seventies, for The Ward, Vampires and Ghosts of Mars... but, compared to Argento, Carpenter is aging like fine wine.
If you admired the cinematic craft displayed in Deep Red and Suspiria, do yourself a favour: avoid this movie and everything else made by Argento in the last years (actually, I'd argue he hasn't made anything of value after Inferno, and that was in 1980). It's the cinematic equivalent of watching your favorite soccer player try to take a penalty kick, only to trip over and break his leg.
3/10
Here the one badly slumming is Adrien Brody in a double role as both a veteran detective and the serial killer he is hunting down, the titular Giallo. It's the kind of performance which should balance out his magnificent turn in the Pianist and make the Academy retire his Best Actor Award.
The movie is embarrassing, worthless, hilarious. It's Uwe Boll bad - except from Boll himself that would be legitimate; from someone like Argento, it's tragic. People snipe at John Carpenter, another titan of the Seventies, for The Ward, Vampires and Ghosts of Mars... but, compared to Argento, Carpenter is aging like fine wine.
If you admired the cinematic craft displayed in Deep Red and Suspiria, do yourself a favour: avoid this movie and everything else made by Argento in the last years (actually, I'd argue he hasn't made anything of value after Inferno, and that was in 1980). It's the cinematic equivalent of watching your favorite soccer player try to take a penalty kick, only to trip over and break his leg.
3/10