Overview
Hired to steal a rare painting from one of the most enigmatic painters of all time, an ambitious art dealer becomes consumed by his own greed and insecurity as the operation spins out of control.
As plodding and pretentious as the worst art critic, the film thinks it is a neo-noir, and has a tight 98 minutes runtime, but it is more neo-yawn and feels at least 2 hours longer than it needs to be.
The premise is that a pretentious art critic who is a bit strapped for cash gets a chance to speak with a reclusive artist whose work always appears to suffer firey ends. One stipulation is that he obtains one of the artist’s pieces for a wealthy collector. However, things aren’t all that they seem, and the film enters the dark underworld of art, with theft, conspiracy, hoaxes, and even murder….sounds exciting! It isn’t!
Debecki’s Bernice has zero chemistry with Claes Bang’s James, making their ‘sizzling wild romance’ utterly dull. When you find yourself out-acted by Mick Jagger, you know you are on a bad roll. Donald Sutherland crops up as the artist Jerome Debney, and briefly lights up the screen, but then we are back to Bang’s “Young” James (seriously – he’s 52, but everyone refers to him as a young critic!) and Debecki’s wooden Bernice.
Dull, lifeless, and ponderously navel gazing, the film is not as smart as it clearly thinks it is, and by the end you will simply breathe a sigh of relief that it is over….and hope that all copies will be burnt.