Felony (2013)

Directed by: Matthew Saville
Country: Australia / USA

Movie Review: “Felony” is an Australian cop thriller, written by Noel Edgerton, who also stars and co-produces, and directed by Matthew Saville, filmmaker with a solid background on TV series. The film starts with the tough detective Malcolm Toohey (Edgerton), driving under the influence of alcohol when off-duty. He accidentally runs over a nine-year old kid, calling the emergency number and pretending he found the body by chance. Two other detectives will take opposite sides dealing with the case. While the amoral chief detective Carl Summer (Tom Wilkinson) tries to cover up Malcolm, who confesses the crime to his wife and struggles with his conscience, the obstinate newcomer detective Jim Melic (Jai Courtney) finds the truth and wants to deal accordingly, especially after developing a crush on the kid’s mother. The three detectives embark in a moralistic ‘dance’ that unveils crime, corruption and the weight of conscience. Saville gives an attentive look to certain details and doesn’t fall in the temptation of rushing the scenes. However the narrative construction suffers from an apathy that left me with a foot in and a foot out. In a sleepy cadence, it throws up a lot of situations that we already have seen before. This morality tale seemed apathetic, and its characters old and worn. As has been usual, Tom Wilkinson showed his enormous talent, turning the tepid “Felony” a little more bearable, where the bad script and non-shiny execution couldn't go unnoticed.