Resurrection

Easter Shuffle

Resurrection
Directed by Russell Mulcahy
USA/Canada 1999
Interlight Pictures

Warning: Some spoilerage on this one but I dont reveal the killer’s identity.

So I was looking around for something to watch for this year’s Easter themed blog review and I came across a movie which... I don’t think I’ve seen before (although, to be fair, having now watched it, it’s fairly forgettable) and which has an interesting premise.

Resurrection is all about Detective Prudhomme, played by Christopher Lambert and his latest case, which he works, for the most part (until the inevitable moment you know is coming), with his partner Detective Hollinsworth, played by Leland Orser. Hollinsworth is the more sympathetic of the two while Prudhomme is pretty humourless and dry, with a marriage to his wife halfway on the rocks due to the recent loss of their son through an accident. It’s almost exactly the same tragic back story as that in John Woo’s recent Christmas action flick Silent Night (reviewed here) but, yeah, the whole film is pretty cliché ridden, to be fair. Anyway, a serial killer starts going about his business and taking bits of his victim’s bodies with him week after week, because he believes he can rebuild the resurrected body of Christ in time for Easter, using the collection of body parts with which he’s absconding and then piecing them together, Dr. Frankenstein style. It’s up to Prudhomme and Hollinsworth to try and stop him, aided by people like a criminal profiler played by Robert Joy (who I believe plays Victor’s father in the recent, third series of From, reviewed here) and, playing the local priest, trying to get the detective to set foot in a church again after the death of his son, we have the great director David Cronenberg giving a pretty credible performance.

Okay, so the film is definitely looking like something which is trying to cash in on the success of David Fincher’s Se7en, with the detectives finding mutilated bodies in places while the rain hammers down on them and with a lot of the film being shot in very muted, dull grey colours. And I’d like to say it feels very 1990s but, if anything, it kinda feels very 1980s but, this is not a criticism at all. The film dashes along at a fairly breakneck pace and, although some of the characters are quite likeable, Prudhomme is not really the hero I’d like to follow in this one, I’d have to say.

Now it’s not a bad film… it’s quite respectable in execution and I certainly was kept entertained for a fair amount of it. But it does have some problems such as some very bad, stilted dialogue which, although possibly keeping in tone with the characters, becomes almost laughable in the early stages of the film. However, the biggest problem is the way it telegraphs itself to the viewer constantly. There are literally no surprises here. For instance, when the serial killer is shown to have killed Prudhomme’s wife, you know way before he does that the killer actually got the wrong person because of some of the details of situations set up earlier in the film. Similarly, when the serial killer enters the picture as a character fairy early, you know right away that this is the person responsible for what’s going on and you have to wonder why it takes the police so long to twig just what’s going down. So, yeah, you do feel the main characters are not the smartest and having to play catch up to the audience a lot of the time.

But, it is atmospheric and, as Easter themed movies go, it’s one of the more unusual, it seems to me. Composer Jim McGrath’s score also keeps things going and glues the sections of the movie together pretty well so, while it’s neither a barrel of laughs or, really not all that much fun, the film does entertain and holds the attention a certain amount so, I can’t complain about this one too much. It’s not that good but it’s certainly not the worst I’ve seen of this kind of police procedural thriller so, it is what it is, I suppose. Resurrection is not a film I’d recommend unless you want something a little different for Easter time.