Giallo (2010)

Torino in Italy.Serial killer called Yellow is killing beautiful foreign women because he is ugly as hell.He kidnaps them first in his taxicab and proceeds to drug them.Then he mutilates his victims and photographs his deeds before each gruesome kill.Linda(Polanski's wife Emmanuelle Seigner)teams up with detective Enzo(Adrien Brody)and they both try to stop elusive killer before he kills Linda's captured sister.Being a fan of Dario Argento's gialli I was a bit disappointed with "Giallo".Actually I avoided watching this film for some time.First of all the killer called Yellow looks truly stupid.Still the cinematography of "Giallo" is truly beautiful and the acting is quite good.There are also some unpleasant scenes of gore and carnal mutilations,but the film lacks suspense and truly engaging story.7 slashings out of 10.

I can find nothing to recommend in this movie. Filmed in Italy? Everyone speaks in differently accented English!! Except the serial kidnapper/killer. He has perhaps 5 lines in the entire film and his English us the worst caricature of an Italian accent I've ever heard in a film. The script is absolutely not believable in terms of how police conduct an investigation of any crime, but most especially that of a serial killer. The biggest disappointment is Adrian Brody's performance. But really all the performances are not true to character, they are either over or under acted. The worst performance is the main female protagonist (sister of the most recent kidnap victim). She displays all the wrong affect in almost every scene. How did the director not intervene? Or perhaps it is indeed the worst directorial job I've ever seen. The musical score contributes nothing to the pace, the suspense, the climax, or any other part of the film. Don't spent even $2 on a rental. Watch any episode of CSI. And you'll be better off.

***SPOILERS*** Uneven and confusing slasher movie taking place in Milan Italy involving this deformed, from a severe case of hepatitis, and mentally challenged taxi driver, no not Travis Bickel, Midori played by Stato Oi. It's Midori who has a habit of kidnapping his pretty women costumers and then mutating and murdering them. It's when Midori kidnaps his latest victim Amercan fashion model Celine, Eisa Patsky, who for some strange reason has an Italian accent that her concerned sister who's also beautiful Linda, Emmanulla Seigner, gets into the act in trying to find her before she ends up as dead meat.So far so good and it's gets even better or worse in how you look at it. That's with transplanted New york homicide detective Italian American Inspector Enzo Audifi, Adrin Brody, getting on the case. He's been involved in tracking down serial & slasher killers since he was a little boy, in Italy, and saw his mom murdered by one of them. Working as a team both Audifi & Linda track down the killer kidnapper but for some strange reason he seems to slip away from them despite his being denied, by being on the run, the medication that he so desperately needs to keep him normal. Still he's able to kidnap Linda and hold her hostage even though she has many chance's to escape from him. That's by Midori claiming that he knows where her sister is being hidden and she'll never find her alive if she doesn't go along with his wishes. Which God only knows what they are since he keeps changing them at every twist and turn in the movie.****SPOILERS**** It's Audifi who finally gets an important lead on the killer, his doctor & hospital appointments, only to have Linda screw everything up by trying to have him get away from him and the perusing police! That's in Linda feeling that he's the only person, by knowing where she is, who save her sister Celine's life. The ending sequence has the killer meet his end by falling through a sky window and crashing to the ground ending up in a bloody mess: Just like the movie! But wait there's a big big surprise at the very end that has to do with Celine's whereabouts. But we never really get to see it in that the movie ends before she's found if she's found at all! Director Dairo Argento's least effective Giallo movie that ironically is entitled "Giallo". Despite the blood and gore in it that's so common in Argento movies there's no suspense or sudden horror jump shots to make it effective. It just plods along to its eventual and somewhat confusing ending. As for Inspector Audifi the hero in the movie he seems to check out before the movie, and it's surprise ending, came to its conclusion. Maybe he knew that the film was a turkey and wanted out of it as soon as possible!

Time was when Argento was one of my favorite horror directors ;remember his impressive "profondo Rosso" ,his mind-boggling "Ucello Della Piume Di Cristallo" ,his baroque "opera",his terrific "tenebrae"! But no more ;from "two evil eyes" onward ,Argento's works fail to excite me ;it must be the screenplays;in the sixties and seventies efforts,the stories were complicated ,labyrinthine,with unexpected twists ;there were knowing lightings and a sense of space ("Inferno") few directors have."Giallo" is a non-story,or a psycho killer story the average viewer has seen at least a hundred times or more ;E.Seigner,with her sullen face ,is not able to generate any emotion;and we can only dream of what Argento would have done with highly talented Brody in his heyday!certainly not this cop with a dark past!As for the killer,he is not even scary;Brody himself was much frightening in "oxygen" .