Homicide detectives Joe Merriwether and Katherine Cowles have a tough case – three murders that are precise, clean and entirely evidence free – so Joe asks his old friend, Dr. John Clancy, to help.
John has been in seclusion since his daughter died of leukemia and is less than thrilled to be asked back – even balking after a revelation on a fourth murder.
Solace is a fantasy/sci-fi thriller with a paranormal angle – John is a psychic. Not a supernatural one – he believes only in quantum physics and biochemistry, thinking of his gift as the most amped up case of intuition ever. Until that is, he discovers that he might have the second most amped up intuition ever.
What is basically a chess game between two psychics is purposefully – and poorly – broken up by another murder that definitely doesn’t fit the psychic killer’s profile – their killer’s victims include a young boy, an elderly black woman, a middle-aged man and a beautiful young woman (none of whom have any connection to each other). There’s a reason it’s in the film but is introduced clumsily enough that it takes some of the steam and direction out of the film.
Joe (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and Katherine (Abbie Cornish) have a good chemistry as partners – they spar and support as/when needed, but it takes Joe’s insistence on bringing John into the case that shows how much faith they have in each other. She’s not impressed (she’s a psychologist who has doubts about John’s abilities) – and neither is John (he uses a quote from Freud to describe his feelings towards psychologists) – until a couple of key conversations change her mind (and his…).
Thanks to John’s input, they are able to finally establish a motive before John bolts. The killer is, he says, an even stronger psychic than he is (that and some disturbing… let’s call them visions…) and he can’t handle it.
When Joe persuades John to come back – there’s another murder – the plot shifts full on into the duel between John and the Other – who turns out to be a guy named Charles Ambrose (Colin Farrell). Ambrose is an otherwise unremarkable guy – no history of abuse; parents didn’t break up or die; his reasons are valid logically, if not ethically.
Shot with a cool-to-cold palette (blues, greys, browns), Solace comes off as sci-fi noir – atmosphere is as important as the convolutions of the plot.
Other than the clumsy introduction of the second murderer, Solace might well have been a thriller entertainment if not for being entirely too obvious. Revelations come far too easily – you’ll probably guess Joe’s twist – once Ambrose’s motive is established, and the duel between him and John is too over the top (though it probably looked good on paper).
Credit is due for the cast, though, because they make the whole thing palatable if not exactly thrilling. A bit less of the electronic score – a bit less on the nose – might have helped, too.
Director Alfonso Poyart hits all the necessary beats (and a few unnecessary ones) squarely, but the script – by Sean Bailey (Push, Nevada) and Ted Griffin (Terriers) – is just a bit too much throughout (it wants to be smarter than it is) and the film only barely gets where it’s going.
It’s worth a rental if there’s nothing else available, but it’s not worth an excursion to the local megaplex.
Final Grade: C
Solace is now playing in select theatres and on demand in the US, and will be available via Video on Demand in Canada beginning December 27.
Photos courtesy of Lionsgate/VVS