‘Nefarious’ Review
Stars: Sean Patrick Flanery, Jordan Belfi, James Healy Jr., Eric Hanson, Tom Ohmer, Stelio Savante, Cameron Arnett, Sarah Hernandez, Jarret LeMaster, Robert Peters | Written and Directed by Chuck Konzelman, Cary Solomon
Nefarious tells the tale of a convicted serial killer waiting on the day of his execution. On that day he has a last minute, court-ordered psychiatric evaluation. The doctor then needs to decide if this man is who he claims to be – a demon, Nefarious, who quite happily wants the execution to go ahead.
Much of the movie, possibly about 70% of it, is just the serial killer, played by Sean Patrick Flanery and the doctor (James Martin), played by Jordan Belfi, talking to each other across a table in an otherwise empty room. It’s a battle of wits and character, as the doctor believes he can’t be fooled into calling this man crazy, until he’s not quite sure that’s what he wants to do. The serial killer on the other hand, always seems to be one step ahead. It’s much more interesting than it perhaps should be and a lot of that has to do with the performance of Flanery.
He is so so good as the serial killer/demon. Every word spoken, every facial expression and every slight movement means something. You won’t be able to take your eyes from the screen at every single bit of dialogue. Much of his performance could be seen as a bit clichéd in lesser hands. The ‘ticks’ and kind of slurred speech are often used in similar characters but Flanery makes it work better than expected. It doesn’t feel generic or clichéd, just superb parts of the performance. And even though Belfi’s performance isn’t quite as good, Flanery needs someone to work off of and he does that job perfectly. The performance is a bit straighter, less charismatic but that’s kind of how it needs to be and it’s almost as important. Without these two lead performances Nefarious just wouldn’t have been half as entertaining as it is. For that first half of the movie especially, I couldn’t take my eyes off of the proceedings.
The second half is a little different though. Perhaps the director thought the movie needed a bit of action and that it wouldn’t work out as it was for a whole ninety minutes. So we get a small ‘fight’ scene and a different location for the last twenty minutes. The quality doesn’t suddenly dip completely though. It just doesn’t quite reach the intensity that it initially had. Adding more characters, even if they don’t actually have a lot of character or much dialogue, still seems to dilute what they had before. Don’t be mistaken though in thinking this goes out with a whimper. There’s still lots to enjoy in the final third of the movie. Even if there is a highly predictable final moment.
Nefarious shows how a simple idea (here inspired by the book A Nefarious Plot by Steve Deace) can go a long way when you have two great actors in the lead roles. If the movie could have kept up with its excellent first 45 minutes then this could have been one of the best movies of the year. There is still much more here for Nefarious to find an audience though and it’s well worth checking out.
