Solace (2016)

Do not look at (average) score before seeing this movie! Otherwise you might miss an excellent acting from all main characters (Hopkins, Morgan, Cornish and Farrell) !

Solace: Directed by Afonso Poyart. Written by Sean Bailey and Ted Griffin.Solace is one of those relatively high concept serial killer thriller that were pretty popular for a while in the 90s. Anthony Hopkins plays a psychic doctor who is helping a detective friend of his attempt to solve a case where the killer is almost perfect in his ways. This killer is specifically targeting people who have either terminal illnesses or severe suicidal tendencies. This had a decent enough hook to at least want to know where this is going. This is painfully by the book though. It hits all the cliche marks right down the line. Sometimes this is not something that will kill a movie. But the movie must have style to supplement or fascinating characters. This does not, this has the type of people you think they are with the shadowy tragic backstories you know they have from the very start. Both Anthony Hopkins and Jeffrey Dean Morgan play their parts well. They are believable as long time colleagues and friends. Anthony Hopkins is always watchable. His performance elevates the portions that he is in but there is only so much he can do. The biggest issue this movie has other than the nonsense psychic tete a tete going on between Anthony Hopkins and Colin Farrell is the camerawork and the atrocious editing. There are cuts everywhere, some of which were disorienting. It made things hard to follow and it was generally incredibly irritating. It ruined the tension anytime it tries to bring into the action or meat of the story. This is a miss for sure. It had potential to take the premise in wild and crazy directions. To have fun with it. It does not. Instead it labors in dull meandering threads with no idea how to get from one point to another. It attempts to amp up tension with extremely cryptic imagery and inane editing. I would say to skip this one. I give it a D.

While flipping I found this movie on INDIE. An Anthony Hopkins movie I have not seen (said the older lady), literally one about which I have never heard. I just finished watching this movie and cannot understand the negative reviews. I thoroughly enjoyed the time spent watching. There may have been a few slow moments but all-in-all it was very entertaining; i.e., intriguing, suspenseful, well written and acted, etc. If you do not believe or are at least curious about psychic abilities, why would you have watched it to begin with? A number of movies are similar in slight ways but to me it did not occur to me while I watched this one. I see no similarity to Silence, Dr. Letter was not psychic but brilliant. So glad I flipped upon another movie with the phenomenal acting and presence of Sir Philip "Anthony Hopkins".

Solace is a good name for this movie. It means peace and quiet. Anthony Hopkins character is a psyche and he chases another psychic who appears to be even better than he is. This is the climax of the movie. In the end, the audience is left with one impending question: was the perpetrator really a criminal or more like a super-hero with mercy for the victims who had terminal illnesses, suffering and undeniably short-lived lives?This movie has a lot of flash forwards - which is opposite to flash-backs which show the actors in their past historical memories. The flash forwards are captured by the camera in an array of multiple screen sequencing and representing the future and psyche visions.There is a minor conflict between the good psychic and a police officer who is a psychologist. However that conflict is quickly overcome when the good psychic, Anthony Hopkins, takes a liking to the police psychologist. A friendship develops putting all conflict aside.