Best Review: The maniac Arnaud Lefebvre (John Malkovich), nicknamed the Artist, was caught and put in a mental hospital a few years ago. He became the first patient sentenced to death in one of the hospitals. He killed several women, turning their bodies into something resembling a work of art, but very perverted.
He carefully processed each of the bodies and gave it a picturesque look (which one can be understood if you look at what is placed in the background on the poster). However, a few years after his capture, another maniac started up in the city. Imitating Lefebvre, h continued his work, and the detective who once caught the maniac, Jack Doyle (Martin Lawrence) and his new partner, Detective Mary Kelly (Melissa Roxbourg), took up the investigation.
The copycat kills almost every day and the police have little time to find him, because the cops decided to turn to Lefebvre for support (who better than a psycho to know how other psychos think, right?!). But Lefebvre is due to be executed in a couple of weeks, which means that the cops have even less time than expected…
After watching the “Mindcage”, you can understand two things:
1. Melissa Roxbourg is no Jodie Foster.
2. John Malkovich is no Anthony Hopkins.
Although Malkovich is certainly good as an actor, but the attempt of the director of “Mindcage” Mauro Borrelli to shoot another “Silence of the Lambs”, seasoned with religious themes, turned out to be a failure. The plot of his film is a reference to countless films about elusive murderers who play “cat and mouse” with the police or the FBI, but first of all, the viewer will certainly have an analogy with the famous film production of Jonathan Demme.
First of all, because the main character, investigating a chain of murders, turns to a maniac prisoner for help. And an intellectual duel begins between them, as it were. Why, as it were – yes, because the phrases of the characters and the dialogues consisting of them are spelled out weakly, superficially, unoriginal and formulaic.
As an example, neither to the village nor to the city is the intertwined phrase of the heroine Roxbourg that she is in the case under investigation with all her thoughts (in the scene with breakfast at home with her husband). This boilerplate phrase is used in most films about police officers who are burdened with some kind of investigation.
“Mindcage” is, in principle, riddled with cliches of films about maniacs and cannot be considered original from the word at all. Very simple and woven from what has already been the script is not only not unique, it is also quite primitive in the construction of dialogues. The heroes get everything easy and simple. They manage to find evidence very simply, to insinuate themselves into the confidence of a maniac sitting behind bars, to solve promptly issues that will take time.
And the “Mindcage” is replete with inconsistencies and outright nonsense. The cops confiscate the painting, but at the same time they do it carelessly (without gloves and fears of inheriting, they throw it stupidly into the trunk of a car, although this is evidence), the prisoner in the cell has the opportunity, ATTENTION, to make a fire and arrange “pioneer bonfires” out of paper! For some reason, there is an alternative reality in this film, in which there is not a single video camera at all, which could definitely facilitate the investigation of the cops. But there are absolutely unnecessary flashbacks to the past of a maniac and a detective girl who are aimed at adding a religious background to everything that is happening, but do not do it.
By the way, the director did not manage to emphasize all the religiosity of the serial killer, although he tried to do it. It didn’t work out well. Did the killer position himself with Lucifer, whose name was heard repeatedly, or did he worship him? Did he try to be reborn to match the Tooth Fairy from the “Red Dragon”? The director does not give answers, but there are a lot of questions…
And if we evaluate the hero of John Malkovich precisely as a maniac who kills according to some ritual, then he is definitely a loser in comparison with similar movie maniacs…
With a stretch, I will still give the film 5 out of 10. A movie will do for once, but it is unlikely that you will return to it to reconsider. This is definitely not the kind of movie that you want to turn on for re-viewing.
However, you should watch. I do not impose my opinion on anyone.
Enjoy your viewing.
