Overview
A homicide detective teams up with a criminal profiler to catch a serial killer whose crimes are inspired by the children's game, Hangman.
Reviews
Being an Al Pacino fan, I thought I would give it a look. Oh dear what a waste of time, such talent, such a shame !!
Tries to echo the crime thriller/mysteries in pursuit of a theatrical serial killer like _Se7en, Zodiac or The Bone Collector_. But it fails. It feels very much as if _Hangman_ intended to take one direction, but ran out of time or was forced to go in a worse direction. It's not complete garbage, but it is bogged down by a very awkward bit of copaganda in the middle, among other problems.
_Final rating:★★ - Had some things that appeal to me, but a poor finished product._
**I want to see a movie made by professionals, not this.**
In this film you will find exceptionally bad acting. Even the two heavy-weight names of Hollywood, Pacino and Urban can only do so much with the terrible script. Like in other flicks similar to this one, the makers probably meant to give a realistic edge to their storytelling, by having half the people stutter, filming the car chase like a YouTube video, or having the actors stare into nothing with a thoughtful (dumb) expression on their faces.
Whoever gave the director/editor/writer of "Hangman" money for this abomination, next time give that money to me please, I promise not to flush it down the toilet.
One extra star for Al and Karl, I love you guys.
26 November 2017
I am migrating my reviews from a different site which has become simply garbage. TMDB looks awesome and I look forward to be a part of it.
I THINK Al Pacino was occasionally trying to do a Southern Accent and still sound like Al Pacino, only I think he kept forgetting to do one, and you only hear it in some scenes. WTH Al?
Anyway, you have seen this before, many times, only this time the killer is playing a game of hangman and that is his weird MO, like Se7en, only much lamer. It's like January Man only not as fun. It just doesn't add anything to the trope filled genre, and doesn't really have an interesting story to tell.
So... the result is a subpar film with two good actors doing poor jobs, a story that doesn't add anything to the genre, least of all entertainment, and a setting that is filmed so dark they didn't need much set design and the cinematographer only needed to meter to one kind of light.
Dark alone isn't moody, it's just dark, you have to add a bit of atmosphere to it.
So I'd tell you to stay away. There are certainly worse films out there, but they are going to be more memorable than this.