Felony (2014)

Why so much hype?

Stylish but barely mediocre overall

Great visuals, story delivers no surprises

Beautiful, moving film.

From thequickflickcritic.blogspot.com/ "Felony". A treatise on "What goes around, comes around". On doing what's right because, in the end, it's the only thing TO do. And on the age-old unwritten mandate that "Cops take care of their own." That's a lot to bite off and chew, mate. The good news is that Director Matthew Saville and the stable of fine Australian acting talent at his behest more than pass muster here. Everyone steps up impressively to deliver a rock solid dramatic thriller with a constant current of conscience serving as it's foundation.Namely, Tom Wilkinson is outstanding as ever, Joel Edgerton (so good in last year's "The Gift") is as dependable as fans like me have come to expect and Jai Courtney comports himself just fine, thank you. Wilkinson is the reason to watch "Felony". As great as he is, the veteran inveterate character actor continues to operate largely under the radar.The time has long since passed that the damned radar zero in.For more of my Movie Reviews categorized by Genre please visit: thequickflickcritic.blogspot.com/

Set in Sydney, this absorbing Australian psychological drama gets fine performances from its' three leads, Tom Wilkinson, Joel Edgerton (who also wrote the screenplay), and Jai Courtney.Edgerton portrays Detective Mal Toohey, who after a police celebration of a successful task force operation that he led, gets behind the wheel "under the influence". He ends up side-swiping a 9-year-old boy riding his bicycle, who's knocked unconscious to the pavement. Detective Toohey stops and calls emergency services but doesn't reveal it was he who hit the boy.Detectives Summer (Wilkinson) and Malic (Courtney) come upon the scene and begin to investigate. Detective Summer is a hardened veteran, who knows Toohey, and believes that the police need to protect their own no matter what. However, Detective Malic is a young and idealistic officer, who believes in finding out the truth no matter what the consequences.Over the next three days, as the young boy lies in a coma in the hospital, they'll be many surprises and twists and turns to come in the film, which I thought were quite engrossing and kept me engaged.Australian filmmaker Matthew Saville handles the direction here and, as mentioned Edgerton wrote the script.In summary, I wasn't, to be honest, thrilled with the ending per se, but overall I thought this was a pretty decent and engaging police psychological drama.

From Australia comes this very well written and acted, tense drama that is particularly attuned to our times – the recently noted role of the police force involved in criminal activity and brutality. Written by actor Joel Edgerton who also stars this is storytelling on the first order – well worth viewing and pondering.The concept behind the film is the inner workings of the police force, both old timers such as Detective Carl Summer (a brilliant performance by Tom Wilkinson), hard working detectives like Malcolm Toohey (Joel Edgerton) who happen to make mistakes after having celebrated with booze a recent traumatic arrest, and a newcomer to the force Jim Melic (Jai Courtney is a very sensitive portrayal). Though the focus is on an accidental hit and run between Toohey and a bicycle riding youngster following a checkpoint where Toohey (who has been drinking is stopped by local police but not held because he is a fellow cop) calls for help but decides to cover-up his part in the encounter, the other two cops are at equal crossroads: Summer tells Toohey to fabricate a story to prevent his being arrested for hit and run, a fact that Summer's new ride along partner Melic cannot justify and seeks the mother of the injured child (Sarah Roberts) to console her. As the tension mounts and the youngster's situation deteriorates and so do the lives of these three detectives. Despite Toohey's wife (Melissa George) encouraging him not to tell the truth as well as Summer's insistence that for the safety of the force and the three cops Toohey maintain his fabricated story, Toohey is ridden with guilt and begins to change his mind about the incident and his involvement. Summer is intolerant of Toohey's weakness and in a struggle Melic (who has made an indecent advance to the child's mother despite his extending support for her) brutally assaults Summer resulting in brain damage. All three cops must walk that thin line between truth and fiction and the effect that truth will have on their careers. At times the Australian accents are tough to understand but that is a very minor point. This is a beautifully scripted, conceived, photographed and acted film that should be high on everyone's list of top films of the year.

A tightly wound crime drama that oozes class, this Sydney-set motion picture follows on from These Final Hours and Predestination to continue the stellar run for Australian movies in 2014. With an intelligent and slow burning screenplay by Joel Edgerton, Felony deals with one morally murky question: what price should a good person pay for making one bad mistake? Those hoping for a whodunit will be disappointed; the tension is built through a very precise pace and layered character development rather than a complex plot or shock-factor twists and turns. That the characters are so intriguing and engrossing can be equally attributed to the splendid actors on show. Edgerton leads the way as the respected detective, family man and all round top bloke who is forced to deal with a personally complicated situation, and he delivers an almighty performance with nuance and gravitas. He's not the only one though: Jai Courtney takes a break from hard-arse supporting gigs (Jack Reacher, A Good Day to Die Hard) to bring heft and subtlety to his new cop on the block role, whilst veteran Tom Wilkinson relishes his chance to portray the experienced department head who has misplaced old-school values. A special mention also needs to go out to Bryony Marks, whose moody score is utterly sensational and brings emotion all on its own. Due to a limited release it's unlikely you will be able to catch this on the big screen, but to the top of you 'to see' DVD list this should go.