An Unnecessarily Time Wasting Crime Film

Mindcage, starring Martin Lawrence and Melissa Roxburgh, is another mindless crime film.

Intro

Mindcage, starring Martin Lawrence and Melissa Roxburgh, is another unnecessary film that seems loosely inspired by past movies. The film follows Mary Kelly (played by Roxburgh), who, to solve a serial killer case, interviews an infamous killer who is in a psychiatric institution. Sound familiar yet? The basic plot is quite similar to the oscar winning film Silence of the Lambs, but that’s where the similarities end. To further compare the two films would be a disgrace, as unlike Silence Of The Lambs, Mindcage is filled with awkward scenes, forced acting, and mediocre cinematography.

Storyline

While the storyline is familiar, the execution is awful, as the plot gets polluted with unnecessary supernatural inclusions and terrible character development. Aside from the story, many scenes in the movie are hard to watch as they are either extremely cliche or random. It’s pretty clear that not much planning went into the plot itself and the execution of the scenes. The entire movie seems unoriginal and unsatisfying as it becomes effortless for viewers to predict what will happen next. The casting and characters of the film also don’t make much sense apart from the 3-4 main ones, who also fail to save the movie with their lackluster performances.

Acting & Cinematography

The acting is simply appalling, easily seen through many scenes where the actors clearly give forced, unnatural performances. Yes, this isn't some high-budget blockbuster with a star-studded cast, but the acting is exceptionally subpar, even for a smaller film. Adding to lackluster performances are some absurd cinematography choices, mainly revolving around the film's mood. The film feels like a 90s crime movie in terms of visual quality and environment choice, which is bizarre since the technology readily available nowadays is leaps and bounds better than three decades ago. Furthermore, the only reason films like Se7en can get away with a gloomy, dark crime theme is because the storyline and acting can complement it. At the end of the day, this film essentially mixes old-styled cinematography with a nonsense plot and bad acting.

Closing Critiques

Is Mindcage worth watching? Absolutely not. You have a better chance of closing your eyes and picking out a random film from Netflix and enjoying it more than this film. It's hard to think of anything good about the movie other than some interesting ideas that may have had potential but needed to be executed properly. Overall, this film is a waste of 90 minutes that could be very well spent doing anything else.

Raving Rating: 4.7