I’ve always enjoyed a good serial killer movie. I’ve also always enjoyed actor Al Pacino. So, when I came across the serial-killer thriller HANGMAN and noticed that it starred Pacino, I decided to give it a shot.

HANGMAN follows detectives Will Ruiney (Karl Urban) and Ray Archer (Pacino) as they search for a serial killer who’s murdering people while playing a sick version of the children’s game of the same name. Ruiney’s the detective in charge and he asks for help from Archer, who’s now retired, when some of the clues seem to be linked directly to them both. Complicating matters is the fact that just before the serial murders began, Ruiney was asked to work with New York Times journalist Christi Davies (Brittany Snow), who’s returned to her hometown of Monroe, GA to write a story profiling cops in this day and age. Now, the two cops and the reporter must race against the clock to find the killer as quickly as possible, as he hangs someone different each night and leaves the next cryptic clue.

Now don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t expecting another movie of the quality of SEVEN or THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, but I expected more than this. On paper, HANGMAN at least sounds like the kind of movie I often like. I love following detectives around as they try to piece together clues and encounter various obstacles and surprises along the way. Throw in the legendary Pacino, who’s played some awesome cops over the years. I first became a huge fan of Pacino with the release of his cop-thriller SEA OF LOVE, not his more legendary roles in THE GODFATHER films. SEA OF LOVE came along at the perfect time for me to discover him in the late 80’s on VHS after he’d taken a multi-year break from the film industry. And Karl Urban is very good when he’s working with the right material. I thought he was great in movies like the recent STAR TREK films and DREDD. And for full disclosure, I love Brittany Snow and think she’s beautiful in the PITCH PERFECT movies, and I’m not ashamed!  Unfortunately, when director Johnny Martin tried to put the story, the actors, the action and the mystery all together, what we’re left with is a movie that I didn’t enjoy at all.

The story is ridiculous. Would a reporter for the New York Times be allowed to be so involved in the investigation of the serial killer that she’s allowed to be in the room with the medical examiner while they’re removing hearts and stuff? Would she be allowed to follow the detectives into buildings where the serial killer is and then wander off by herself? Is there any shock that she ends up taken by the Hangman? In a case where a serial killer is carving letters into victims and hanging them in public, wouldn’t there be more people working the case than a current cop, a retired cop, and a Pulitzer-nominated journalist? Apparently not in Monroe, GA. And good grief, when we find out why the serial killer is doing this, it may be the worst excuse for serial murders in film history. I was like, seriously, THIS is why you’ve chosen to hang so many people after practicing your hand carving skills?!! I generally have a lot of patience for cop movies, but the one thing I really struggle with is a story that requires the characters we’re supposed to care about to act stupid in order for the plot to move forward.

As far as Al Pacino is concerned, the man’s a thespian legend who’s starred in some of the greatest movies ever made and nothing can ever take that away from him. But if an alien landed on Earth, and the only thing he knows about Al Pacino is his performance in HANGMAN, that alien would not spread a positive endorsement of the man’s work when he returns to his home galaxy. He turned me off immediately when he tried to affect some kind of Southern accent since the movie’s set in Georgia. Please don’t do that Al, especially since it goes away only to reemerge again late in the film. I don’t want to speculate on exactly how Pacino was enticed to join this film, but I do think that he must have picked up on the fact that it was a dog, and he seems completely disinterested. Karl Urban probably fares best in the acting department, even though his character does a lot of dumb stuff, and even though he’s about as one-note as it gets. Yet, he’s so serious that it actually kind of works with all the incompetently absurd things going on with this movie. As for Brittany Snow, after seeing this, I still think that she’s beautiful in the PITCH PERFECT movies.

I don’t want it to sound like I’m coming down too hard on the film or its director. I actually enjoyed Martin’s vigilante-themed film from the same year, VENGEANCE: A LOVE STORY, which starred Nicolas Cage. But the truth is that I’m generally easy to please, because I can appreciate a ridiculous genre thriller when it knows it’s ridiculous and has some fun with it, and I can also appreciate a dark, disturbing serial killer movie that gets under my skin and guts me emotionally. Unfortunately, dear readers, in this case, HANGMAN does neither, and I think it sucks.