Dark Crimes

The film's pace never deviates from its hushed, deliberate, anticipatory gaze - it's stuck in thriller-foreplay mode.

The screenplay teeters between depraved and confusing ("Truth is what you make it. Reality is perception.") Say what?

Source material with great dramatic potential. Talented director and screenwriter. Intriguing cast. That's a promising menu - but the end product leaves a sour taste.

That this exercise in vulgarity was made at all is shameful.

A good story gets stuck in a puddle of mood in "Dark Crimes," a film that strays from its fascinating source - a real-life murder case - into a less successful attempt at noir.

Carrey's quietly exacting, uncharacteristic performance, though not qualifying as a saving grace, hints at some promising new career directions in the same manner Robin Williams successfully tapped a darker side with "One Hour Photo."

This production pudding is so artificial that it is hard to believe any of the characters, save for Gainsbourg's.

It's very rare for a film to pretty much have no redeeming features about it, but Dark Crimes is essentially impossible to recommend beyond those who have a morbid curiosity.

There's not even much novelty in seeing Carrey play so aggressively against type in this oppressively artless slog.

Dark Crimes is a film that doesn't work with a performance that actually works pretty well.