aNewDomain — Reviewers so far have been pretty hard on Afonso Poyart’s thriller Solace, which is available now for streaming rental through Amazon and Vudu.
But I rather enjoyed it.
Solace is a tale of a serial killer (Colin Farrell) who is pursued by the FBI, including retired clairvoyant physician (Anthony Hopkins), who sees both past and future.
The twists here are that (a) the killer is also clairvoyant and (b) the murder victims are already fated to die horrible deaths from “natural causes.”
The killer views his actions as merciful. The FBI does not agree.
I know, it’s silly. But it’s fun to see Hopkins do his Hopkins thing once again.
The rest of the cast is solid, too. Jeffrey Dean Morgan, for example, plays the lead investigator.
Yes, it’s true the serial killer genre has been done to death (ha). But there’s enough of interest here to be entertaining.
A big part of the fun is watching how the story plays with multiple versions of the future as seen by the clairvoyant doctor and killer. They can see ahead, but they can’t see how things are going to play out.
That’s a subtle reminder that even they are, after all, only human.
Solace has enough drama and suspense to keep us entertained while nudging us to think about the ethics of “mercy killings.”
As the movie makes clear through to its conclusion these are life-and-death decisions that we dare not take lightly.
If you’ve ever participated in end-of-life decision-making for a loved one you’ll know what I mean.
Solace is, of course, just a movie, but there’s enough on view here to entertain and also to make you think.
For aNewDomain, I’m Dennis D. McDonald.
Here’s the official trailer, below.
Cover image: IMDB.com, All Rights Reserved
