Film review: Pursuit aims for cool and complex and ends up a mess
Pursuit: not exactly essential viewing, according to our film critic
- Pursuit
- ★☆☆☆☆
(15A) stars Emile Hirsch as Rick Calloway, an off-the-grid computer hacker desperately trying to find his kidnapped wife, who seems to be a pawn in a deadly game being played by rival drug dealers Taye Biggs (William Katt) and Rick’s father Jack (John Cusack). Complicating matters is Mike Breslin (Jake Manley), a NYPD detective devastated by the murder of his own wife and who believes that Rick can lead him to her killers…
Written and directed by Brian Skiba, is an action thriller that aims for cool and complex but comes off as a frigid mess. John Cusack is the only actor who seems to realise that acting doesn’t necessarily involve quirky emoting, with the worst offender being Emile Hirsch, whose excessively laidback, stoner-ish delivery is completely at odds with his character’s plight.
The sub-Tarantino plot is a spaghetti junction of half-baked motives and stock villains, while the dialogue is so banal that the regular eruptions of deafening semi-automatic fire come as something of a relief.
(digital download)
