Review:
"Destroyer"
Release Date: Jan. 11, 2019
Rating: R Running Time: 123 minutes Destroyer is the True Detective film HBO has yet to greenlight. A slow-burn cop opera meticulously staged by The Invitation’s Karyn Kusama, Destroyer unfolds as a 123-minute condensing of an eight-episode season of the HBO series—if it had the audacity to focus on a female detective and her crusade to makes amends for a decades-old mistake. Screenwriters Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi tell the downward spiral of Nicole Kidman’s worn-down LAPD detective Erin Bell over the course of two timelines. Her past comes back to haunt her when a fugitive bank robber resurfaces in Los Angeles years after pulling of a job that left two dead. Bell’s quarry is Silas (Toby Kebbell), an underwritten but supposedly enigmatic criminal and seducer of the easily manipulated. Through flashbacks, Kusama reveals that Bell and her partner and eventual lover, Chris (Sebastian Stan), went undercover to infiltrate and bust Silas’ gang before they can commit their next bank robbery. Kusama seamlessly moves us back and forth between the past and present, with Hay and Manfredi slowly feeding us with the information that we need to eventually put two and two together. This results in a payoff that leaves you wanting to watch Destroyer a second times to see skillfully Kusama and her screenwriters break all the pieces apart and put them back together. Kusama envelopes Destroyer with an inevitable sense of doom, that Bell is preparing in the present day to meet her own judge, jury, and executioner for her responsibility in the bank robbery that has left her permanently scarred and devastated the lives of several others. This is never more evident than in Bell’s efforts to ensure her estranged teenage daughter Shelby (Jade Pettyjohn) does not crawl down her own path of self-destruction. Her interactions with Chris, played out in the flashbacks, provides a glimpse at what her future could be. But Chris, like Shelby, exists only to propel the narrative forward. Chris and Shelby are solely defined by their importance to Bell, with the former revealing Bell to an unexpected damaging influence and the latter inadvertently offering Bell a shot at redemption after years of being a distanced mother. Lurking in the shadows in both timelines is Silas. Kebbell instills Silas with sufficient sociopathic traits to make him a persuasive and unpredictable nemesis but he cannot stop Destroyer from reducing Silas to nothing more than a haunting presence. The demands of these two timelines stretch Destroyer thin, with neither exploration of Bell’s most intimate relationships proving to be fully satisfying. Destroyer also rushes in the final act to its otherwise compelling conclusions, suggesting that screenwriter Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi would benefitted narratively had they written Destroyer as a limited miniseries à la True Detective. But Destroyer’s flaws cannot take anything away from Kidman’s willingness to immerse herself physically and psychologically in a role of a woman broken by time and unable to escape her past. As the present-day Bell, Kidman hides behind such severe makeup that Bell appears to at least 10-15 years older than her age. She is a shell of the woman she once was in so many ways. The juxtaposition between the younger and the older Bell is jarring. Guilt has taken its toll on Bell’s mind and body to the point that she no fears facing the past. Kidman strides through Destroyer as an intimidating force to be reckoned with, whether she is dealing with all sorts of shady types as she hunts down to Silas or trying to put her equally stubborn daughter in her place. But Kidman never makes us forget that Bell is an emotionally wounded wreck who has nothing to lose except her chance to make peace with her past. Kidman initially presents Bell as a classic 1970s anti-hero. By the time the final gunshot fired, Bell is something so much more dark and terrifying. Robert Sims Aired: Jan. 10, 2019 Web site: https://www.destroyer.movie/ |
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