Hangman, the thriller about a homicide detective and a criminal profiler hunting a serial killer is not a great movie.

Starring Al Pacino, Karl Urban and Brittany Snow, within the first quarter of the film, it was already clear to me that the story wasn’t flowing as well as a thriller of this sort ought to, to be good, let alone great.

Something didn’t quite gel for me between the characters played by Urban and Pacino. Maybe it’s a lack of chemistry, perhaps the writing, or all the above and then some. I just knew that this wasn’t going to be a serial killer movie that would make me forget even for a second about Se7en (1995), one of the best of the genre.

As awkward as the story set-up felt initially, things did pick up somewhat in terms of happenings that had me paying attention. Still, overall, there really isn’t anything in Hangman that will have you insisting that others must watch. I’d usually say ‘Watch it if you absolutely must’ at this point. However, in this case, by ‘absolutely must’ I’d mean, so you can see for yourself how the film missed the mark in terms of story structure and the lack of seamless character background introduction. There’s also awkward dialogue that played a part in making generally good actors look bad.

Have you seen Hangman? If so, please do share your thoughts in the comments below.

Happy Film Loving,

G