EXPOSED (2016)

Directed by Declan Dale, Starring: Keanu Reeves, Ana de Armas, Mira Sorvino. Crime, mystery, US, 2016, 97mins, Cert 15.

New York Detective Scot Galban (Keanu Reeves) investigates the brutal murder of his partner. Meanwhile, a young woman called Isabel (Ana de Armas) starts seeing albino angels and appears to be pregnant from some kind of Immaculate Conception.

Originally titled ‘Daughter of God’, the film apparently suffered significant studio interference resulting in director Gee Malik Linton pulling an ‘Alan Smithee’ and hiding behind the pseudonym ‘Declan Dale’ (presumably because ‘Dirk Diggler’ was copyrighted). Whether writer/director Linton’s original vision would have delivered a more satisfying final product is something we’ll probably never know. Certainly the original title suggests the intention was to focus on Isabel – whose story admittedly appears more interesting than the negligible murder investigation which Keanu Reeves staggers through with as much urgency as a somnambulistic zombie wading through a particularly deep pool of treacle. 

Keanu’s cold amoral detective is portrayed in such a detached minimalist manner I’d actually describe it as a non-performance.The character of the murdered detective’s widow, played by Mira Sorvino, appears written (and played) as the next phase in the embittered life of her tart-with-a-heart hooker role from Woody Allen’s MIGHTY APHRODITE. Ana de Armas admittedly makes a reasonable fist of it conveying her character Isabel’s vulnerability and emotional turmoil. 

The film is watchable. The photography for example manages to ring every drop of cinematic interest as it’s possible from the essentially threadbare dry drama. The problem is that having sat through it you inevitably feel cheated and unrewarded. Police corruption, Catholic faith, child abuse, rape, you name it there’s enough individual elements here for several films. Unfortunately, all these competing strands end up drowning in the muddied waters of a re-edited product with a seemingly shoe-horned Keanu Reeves cop-thriller floating precariously through it like an unconvincing rubber dingy. 

Neither one thing nor the other, the film suddenly arrives at an abrupt conclusion with a supposed double twist bonus, (one of which I saw coming so clearly it might as well have been advertised on a neon billboard in Times Square). And as for the other, well in order to at least try to instil some doubt as to the identity of the killer, the actual detail of the murder isn’t revealed to the viewer until the panicky last-minute dénouement. The fact that it’s shown in the trailer seriously undermines the mystery – unless you’re Keanu Reeves’ Detective Galban however - who struggles implausibly with it for most of the films running time. 

**(Out of 5*)

Paul Worts
(Originally published on FrightFest website)