Film: To Catch a Killer
Cast: Shailene Woodley, Ben Mendelsohn, Ralph Ineson, Jovan Adepo, Mark Antony Krupa, Rosemary Dunsmore
Director: Damián Szifron
Rating: 3/5
Runtime: 119 mins

This procedural cop thriller about the hunt for an armed and dangerous lunatic who is on the verge of committing mass murder is generic and familiar given its theme and beats… but the treatment and the intense performances make this experience a fairly thrilling ride.  

The location is Baltimore and it’s New Year's Eve. There are so many people out and about, celebrating the advent of a new dawn. Just when you start getting immersed in the festivities, a ghostly, ace sharp-shooter from out-of-the-blue, picks out his select targets and makes a meal of them. In a matter of minutes, 19 dead people are strewn across multiple locations within a small periphery. In the next few minutes, we see pandemonium break out as people rush out helter-skelter in an effort to get out of the shooter’s range. It's all so sudden and unexpected and no one knows where the shots are being fired from. The cop on the spot Eleanor (Shailene Woodley) is smart enough to direct her colleagues to document the fleeing people on their mobile cameras. And that’s exactly why the FBI's chief investigator Lammark (Ben Mendelsohn) chooses the troubled officer with a long history of self-abuse to assist him on the case.