Crowe plays an ex-cop receiving treatment for dementia who revisits one of his old cases, only to unearth some uncomfortable but entertaining memories
Entirely preposterous as it is, there’s a fair bit of entertainment to be had in what might be called an erotic pulp-noir from screenwriter turned director Adam Cooper, adapted from the 2017 crime bestseller The Book of Mirrors by Eugene Chirovici. I can imagine Brian De Palma being interested in it – and he might have wanted to twist the eroticism dial clockwise a click or two more.
Russell Crowe plays Roy Freeman, a depressed ex-cop whose wife left him long ago, battling to stay on the wagon, living in squalor and undergoing an experimental treatment to reverse his early onset dementia; he has labels on everything in his apartment to remind him what they’re for – but still occasionally opens the microwave to find the TV remote, completely fried. One day he is visited by a prison charity worker, begging him to visit a former junkie and burglar now on death row for the murder, 10 years previously, of charismatic psychology professor Joseph Wieder (Márton Csókás) – a case which Roy once worked with his partner Jimmy, a tough detective played by Crowe’s fellow Gladiator cast member Tommy Flanagan.
