Destroyer Movie Review

Destroyer (2018)

Rent Destroyer on Amazon Video
Written by: Phil Hay (screenplay), Matt Manfredi (screenplay)
Directed by: Karyn Kusama
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Toby Kebbell, Tatiana Maslany, Sebastian Stan, Scoot McNairy, Bradley Whitford
Rated: R
Watch the trailer

Plot
A police detective reconnects with people from an undercover assignment in her distant past in order to make peace.

Verdict
This is a gritty cop movie about an officer revisiting her past when she was undercover. What happened in the past is slowly revealed as she tries to track down the leader of the old crew who has recently resurfaced The story is solid with a few twists, though not all of them are earned. This focuses a bit too much on Nicole Kidman's old age makeup. She's presumably fifty, but looks seventy. Her acting is good, but the makeup is more a distraction than anything else. The mystery easily pushes this forward.
Watch it.

Review
Kidman plays Detective Bell an ex-undercover cop with a lot of baggage. She's following a case that isn't hers because an old crew member from when she was undercover turns up dead with stolen money from back in the day. She is certain the psychopathic leader of the old crew, Silas, is back.

Nicole Kidman plays Detective Bell

Kidman is wearing heavy makeup, and the camera seems to focus a bit too much on Kidman's face and thus the makeup.  I don't think she'd look this old, despite the rough life she has. It's clear she barely has a grip on her existence. I have to assume her partner has been carrying her. She doesn't seem like any kind of top cop. The other side to that is her baggage casts serious doubt as to whether she will succeed and I like that.

The question throughout the movie is what happened between the undercover sting and now. Why does Silas want to tie up loose ends? His introduction is very good. He's crazy, or better yet manipulative.

It's about to go down.

The movie is very raw. It's a slow unrelenting storm. This isn't the kind of movie where the protagonist breezes through to the end. Bell is skirting the law to get to Silas, but why? There has to be more to her undercover days than we know. What's really at stake?

Kidman without the old age makeup.

What happened then and up to now is revealed. There was a big misdirection that doesn't change the story, just the timeline. It's seems unnecessary to complicate the story in this way, but it does help the opening of the movie. That and it forces the twist. If we knew what was going on in the beginning, it wouldn't have the same impact when we revisit that scene later.