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Movies & TV Movies & TV Reviews

Felony

FELONY (Matthew Saville). 105 minutes. Now playing. Rating: NNN


Joel Edgerton’s first script, The Square, was a tightly wound film noir about a couple whose impulsive criminal act precipitates a hailstorm of trouble. In his second, Felony, the criminal act is accidental – but the cover-up makes it worse.

Felony is a nice, broody policier in which three Australian cops cover up an accident that leaves a young boy unconscious. In the days that follow, they wrestle with their consciences – or don’t – as tensions mount.

The accident is genuinely an accident, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that hero cop Malcolm Toohey (Edgerton) was drunk behind the wheel. The first two detectives on the scene, veteran Carl Summer (Tom Wilkinson) and his young partner, Jim Melic (Jai Courtney), sort of understand what’s going on and work to protect him. And that’s that – except that the kid doesn’t wake up.

Edgerton, who also produced, digs deeply into their motivations and personalities as his protagonists slowly come apart – or ferociously resist doing so – under pressure. The cast (which also includes Melissa George as Edgerton’s wife and Sarah Roberts as a grieving mother) is uniformly solid, and TV director Matthew Saville gives the whole thing a sleek, professional sheen. Felony moves slowly, but it’s absorbing… until the last act, anyway.

Edgerton writes his characters into a corner so murky that their only way out is through two very obvious contrivances. Felony might have recovered from one of them, but not both. Instead, it goes off the rails in its final movement. Dammit.

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