Director: Jason Stone
MPAA Rating: R
Jason Stone’s feature debut, The Calling, boasts an impressive cast with some fantastic performances, however the dreary plot prevents it from being anything more than a slightly above-average procedural. The film hits the ground running, but slowly loses steam as it progresses into what will become a bland murder mystery.
The film stars Susan Sarandon as Hazel, an alcoholic, pill-popping cop in the sleepy winter town of Port Dundas. There, she lives a quiet life with her mother, played by the always-amazing Ellen Burstyn, until an elderly woman is murdered. After another individual meets their demise a few towns over, Hazel begins to realize a serial killer has graced their rural community with his presence.
The setup for this movie seems intriguing and takes a Fargo-meets-Seven tone, but things begin to go South right around the time a young rookie cop (Topher Grace) is transferred to Hazel’s police station. Although Grace himself gave a fine performance and wasn’t necessarily detrimental to the film, his character felt extraneous and out of place.
As the team investigates more murders in the area, patterns begin to emerge that lead them to a man of the cloth, Father Price, played by Donald Sutherland, who has a small role but kills it as always.
The biggest problem with The Calling is simply that the script (or perhaps the novel this is based on), which isn’t strong enough to back up the strong performances. Seeing Susan Sarandon and Ellen Burstyn bicker back and forth is enough to seek out this film, but the murder-mystery element is uninteresting even when the twists emerge. This is unfortunate because the dialogue isn’t half bad either, with just a dash of comedy thrown in to lighten the mood amongst all the depressing bits.
We’re given the identity of the killer very early in the runtime so there’s no whodunit aspect, and his motivations seem fairly transparent. This made me way more invested in the characters than the actual story, which I felt completely disconnected from by the end.
I wish I could give this film a higher score based solely on the performances of Susan Sarandon, Ellen Burstyn and Donald Sutherland, but in the end, it just seemed like wasted talent. The Calling isn’t a bad movie, but it is a terribly generic one that just happens to feature some great actors making the most of it.
