UPDATED: A trailer has been released for Damián Szifron’s “To Catch A Killer,” a genre exercise that looks influenced by the visual stylings of David Fincher, and there’s even a hint of Villeneuve’s “Prisoners” here as well. It just looks very grim.
EARLIER: Last November, Vertical Entertainment had picked up Damián Szifron’s “Misanthrope”, a psychological thriller from the Argentinian director of “Wild Tales”. Now it’s been retitled “To Catch A Killer” and will be released on April 21st. Bad news.
Szifron’s excellent “Wild Tales” was one of the major highlights of Cannes 2014. I had heard that “Misanthrope” was submitted for last year’s edition of the festival, but it was ubiquitously absent from the official selection. Hmm …
The film stars Shailene Woodley and Ben Mendelsohn. Set in Baltimore on New Year’s Eve, a talented but troubled police officer (Woodley) is recruited by the FBI’s chief investigator (Mendelsohn) to help profile and track down a mass murderer.
The actual synopsis for “Misanthrope” sounds a tad too pedestrian and one would have expected a more prestigious arthouse distributor to buy the rights. It seems as though Szifron’s might be entering a sophomore slump.
While James L. Brooks teased last year that "we'll soon be seeing" Jack Nicholson, 89, act again, and that he was "reading scripts," that idea has now been shut down by his close friend Michael Douglas, 82.