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How entertaining? ★★★★☆
Thought provoking? ★★☆☆☆ 9 January 2014
This article is a review of FELONY.
Seen at the Toronto International Film Festival 2013. (For more information, click here.)
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“Time and the world swallow events,” Carl Summer (Tom Wilkinson) to Malcolm Toohey (Joel Edgerton)
Mainstream movie justice says that you commit a crime you pay the price. Audience reassurance through a karmic realigning of the universe. Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s 1866 novel ‘Crime and Punishment’ set the benchmark for tension through guilt. Woody Allen regularly delves into similar waters (CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS, MATCH POINT, etc.). Though ultimately it is one of eventually paying the price. Legal fairness is par the course as seen in the plethora of cop television shows. Then along come four modern projects that have shaken up the moral crime conundrum dissection: THE SHIELD, THE WIRE, DEXTER and BREAKING BAD. Everything now is measured consciously or inadvertently against them.
Props to actor Joel Edgerton for writing a cop movie eschewing overblown action and speechifying; rather, scripting a fat-free intimate drama, whose choices tighten the stomach as a noose swings above his character’s head. Achingly stylish opening credits, in the form of an animated representation of a police radio bandwidth, suggest an upcoming skewed perspective.
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Syndey, Australia, Edgerton’s Malcolm Toohey leads a raid on a warehouse, where he is shot in the process of taking down a perp. Not serious enough to stop Aussies drinking that night in celebration, he makes the crazy error of driving away from the pub under the influence. The password for the evening is “pirate”. To avoid being breathalysed, police need to know it. Not seen this before in a movie. You guessed it, he’s gonna need it.
At the same time senior detective Carl Summer (Wilkinson) is breaking in new partner Jim Melic (Jai Courtney) with a spot of evidence falsifying. Melic holds himself to a standard of incorruptibility. Summer’s activities visibly discomfort him. The three police will converge soon enough. Not in full control of the car, Malcolm clips the bike of young boy on a paper round cycling next to him. Mal calls an ambulance, but a lie blurts out covering up his culpability. Carl and Jim arrive on the scene. Protective of his own, Summer sends Melic to canvas, while he aids Mal’s story cover up under the noise of a news helicopter.
Wilkinson is on fire as his habit. A lazy detective seeing out the last years before retirement, cutting corners is his modus operandi. Disloyalty is not one of his failings though. Painting in shades of grey for a reckless accident with a tragic consequence, has a trio of forceful men butting heads charismatically. These are men’s problems. Women are on the periphery caught up in the maelstrom. Melissa George as wife Julie Toohey shows what he has to lose. Her line, “We can live with this,” is fascinating in its bleak pragmatism. Mother of the victim, Ankhila Sarduka (Sarah Roberts) is so pretty as turn to the head of Melic, further muddying the waters.
Layering the themes, Ankhila is an Indian. We are in JINDABYNE territory. Australia’s relationship with natives and immigrants continues to be complex. Acknowledging that while barely overtly commenting is a subtle touch. Remorse, and Melic’s unwillingness to look past the matter, drops the noose around Toohey’s neck. Anxiety builds as we await its tightening. As in THE SHIELD, we are given a glimpse of a fallen cop, here now a drug cook, to ratchet up the stakes.
FELONY begs the question of other genres: Wouldn’t it also be refreshing to have a blockbuster action flick explore similar moral perplexity among the carnage?
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