Dead Man Down

Director Niels Arden Opley, maker of the original The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, makes his English language feature debut with a familiar face heading up the cast: Noomi Rapace, the original Lisbeth Salander. She plays a woman badly scarred in a car accident, who witnesses a murder and decides to blackmail the murderer (Colin Farrell) into killing the drunken driver who scarred her face. The Farrell character is working a complicated agenda of his own in the service of Alphonse (Terrence Howard) a Manhattan crime lord. The performances are very good here, and the movie looks absolutely great. The problem is Opley’s decision to stuff his movie with so many plotlines twists and turns that you just get exhausted by the halfway point. I think Opley has some good movies in him, and this one isn’t all bad. It’s just something you don’t really need to see.