NIGHT HUNTER (NOMIS)
(director/writer: David Raymond; cinematographer: Michael Barrett; music: Alex Lu; cast: Henry Cavill (Marshall), Ben Kingsley (Cooper), Alexandra Daddario (Rachel), Stanley Tucci (Commissioner Harper), Brendan Fletcher (Simon), Nathan Fillion (Quinn), Emma Tremblay (Faye), Eliana Jones (Lara); Runtime: 98; MPAA Rating: R; producers: Robert Ogden Barnum, David Raymond, Chris Pettit, Rick Dugdale; Saban Films; 2018)
“Goes up in flames despite a stellar cast.“
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
David Raymond’s film debut as a director goes up in flames despite a stellar cast. It’s a psychological thriller about a serial killer with multiple personalities that bogs down over its muddled contrivances, being too light on character development and too heavy on an unneeded complicated and confusing plot.The fun is in how absurd it gets from trying to digest so many ideas it unnecessarily introduces.
The morose divorced Minneapolis police detective Marshall (Henry Cavill, the ex-Superman), who lost custody of his daughter he’s so protective of, leads the search for a sex predator serial killer. He works in tandem with police psychological profiler Rachel (Alexandra Daddario). Also in pursuit is the retired judge and renown vigilante Cooper (Ben Kingsley), known for dishing out harsh pioneer justice, who has a good working relationship with the detective. The judge partners with a young female named Lara (Eliana Jones), whom he uses as bait to lure sex offenders into his trap. When she goes missing and is a possible victim of a sex criminal, the judge gets info from his friends in a rogue police department, who only loosely follow police regulations, to learn of an upcoming raid to free the kidnapped woman. The SWAT team raid is led by Marshall, who frees Lara in a wooded area from being held captive in a basement along with 12 other women held in cages by a middle-aged white man named Simon (Brendan Fletcher). He becomes a suspect in a number of kidnappings and murders, but is so severely mentally ill that he might be too disturbed to have committed so many gruesome murders. In any case, Rachel tries but is not successful in breaking through his many personalities and get to why he’s so evil.
Meanwhile the police commissioner (Stanley Tucci) forgets his professionalism and goes along with the unethical way the vigilante operates in dealing with the mental case serial killer.
If you’re wondering about the title Nomis, that’s derived by spelling Simon backwards. That explanation might be the most lucid thing about this misfire, a somber film that is unintentionally funny but still thoroughly disgusting.
REVIEWED ON 11/22/2019 GRADE: C https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/