Arthur Bretnik (Aaron Eckhart) is a mentally unstable conspiracy theorist and private detective with a traumatic past. While working with friend, Jimmy Cleats (Tommy Lee Jones), they are hired to investigate a possible murder cover up by a distraught mother Elena (Deborah Chavez) who's claiming her daughter was targeted, then killed. This cover up is in the small town of Wander, where Elena claims the cover up has been orchestrated by the authorities there, namely Sheriff Luis Santiago (Raymond Cruz), Elsa (Katheryn Winnick) and others. Arthur is plunged into a world of lies and deceit, as he quickly suspects the murder may be part of the same 'conspiracy cover up' that caused the death of his daughter. Increasingly paranoid, Arthur's sanity is tested as he attempts to filter fact from fiction and solve the case, all the while questioning if he is a pawn in a much bigger game.
Others to round out the cast are Heather Graham as Shelley Luscomb, Brendan Fehr as Nick, Roger Dorman as Leiland, Nicole Steinwedell as Tanya, David Gibson as Canton, Tylannie Smith-Scott as Cleo, Alaina Warren Zachary as Glenda, Sheryl Bailey as Alice, Ian McLaren as Caleb, Elizabeth Selby as Zoe and El Perro as Charlie the dog.
This was intensely directed by April Mullen ("Rock, Paper, Scissors: The Way of the Tosser" '07, "GravyTrain" '10, "Dead Before Dawn 3D" '12, "88" '15, "Farhope Tower" '15, "Below Her Mouth" '16, "Badsville" '17) plus TV. Truly Eckhart is a very talented actor, however it takes an incredibly honed director to make this actor appear to the audience as though he's sane one minute, then paranoid the next. The emotion she was able to extract from Eckhart was phenomenal. By her very resume, she has proven herself time and again, so her next project should be amazing. It was written by longtime collaborator of Mullen by Tim Doiron ("Rock, Paper, Scissors: The Way of the Tosser" '07, "GravyTrain" '10, "Dead Before Dawn 3D" '12, "88" '15) plus TV. Considering this writer has worked along side of Mullen for the majority of his career, is no surprise that he would continue the pattern. Even though there's been a few other films that depict the lead actor playing detectives that are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, i.e. "Memento", "Motherless Brooklyn", even "LA Confidential", this was still an interesting approach showing its audience that even flawed (even incredibly so) characters can solve a case, no matter how difficult, or horrendous the case. In other words, these heroes don't always have to be 'perfect' in order to solve the case and 'get their man'. It was extremely suspenseful, but showcasing Arthur Bretnik like this writer did was pure genius. Although it was only a 90 minute running time, it did have a couple of places that seemed slow, but that was, I'm sure, to build the suspense and set the scene, otherwise this was very effective.
If you like films with heroes that are less than perfect (flaws and all), this will definitely be the film for you. Is Arthur sane? Is he crazy? Is he right about a conspiracy theory, or is it just all in his mind? All interesting questions. This was actually released on 12-4-20, but since it wasn't able to make it to the theater because of the pandemic, I purchased it so I could critique it for you.
Out of 4 Stars: 3.5 Rated: R 92mins.
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