The Stranger (2022)

 

Genre: Drama/ Thriller

Time: 1h 56mins

Director: Thomas M. Wright

Quick Summary: Two men who meet on a bus strike up a conversation that turns into friendship. For Henry Teague, worn down by a lifetime of physical labour and crime, this is a dream come true.

Why did they make this 2 hours long? Honestly, this could have been done in an hour. I might have enjoyed it more then. 

For a start, why do the main two characters look almost the same? It took me forty whole minutes to finally work out who was who securely. I had such difficulty following this is affected the story a bit for me, as I couldn't really make sense of what was happening to whom. Secondly, I am so glad I use subtitles with films anyway because the dialogue is horrendous. People mumble so much it is hard to tell what is being said over this droning soundtrack that blares out at the most random times. 

This was so hard to get through without almost falling asleep. It is so slow and everything is dragged out so much to fill out the almost two-hour runtime. The story is supposedly based on true events and revolves around a complex police operation to lure a suspected serial killer into a fake criminal organization. The plan is to get him to reveal information about a young boy who disappeared a decade ago. To accomplish this, dozens of police officers go undercover as criminals, working together across multiple jurisdictions. However, I highly doubt something like this actually worked.

Lighting? Never heard of it. Most of this film is in darkness with the smallest of lighting. I had no clue what was going on for most of the scenes. Neither of the main leads had any emotions, or any personality which made it more difficult to tell them apart. 

I think for pretty much most of this, I was questioning why I was even watching this. Maybe I was waiting for something to happen? Something DOES happen. Just in the last twenty minutes of the film. At this point, I was sick of it. I was ready for it to end an hour earlier.

It also had a few odd moments where it threw it a few artsy moments, like one being a nightmare the the guy violently shakes with motion blur. It just doesn't fit with this at all. 

Don't waste your time with this and go listen to a podcast, or YouTube video about this, being that it was based on a real-life event. 

1/10