IMPERIUM (2016)

9/21/2016 - Imperium (2016) - 5+/10

Tense with some smartly written moments, funneled through a consistently solid acting job from Radcliffe, Imperium delivers a solid but unspectacular white supremicist/terrorist thriller. It hits most of the standard beats of the "undercover cop" drama, but keeps the edge-of-a-knife intensity and poignancy intact. Unfortunately, it never tries to flee the confines of this standard thriller motif nor does it try to fully explore the psyce of watcher/watched.

Radcliffe, as said before, does a pretty good job. He makes the dialogue work for him and keeps the stress moderately high. One thing about Radcliffe, is that he has generally sad & emotive eyes/smirk mannersim that bugs me. Similar to Kristen Stewart's pensive lip biting, D.R. has kept this anxious/ "woe is me" face for most of his roles and it grinds on me.

The story is certainly interesting, but the construction is a tad wonky. The people he first gets entangled with are abruptly dropped, without any resolution. His presence in the "scene" isn't delved into enough, nor is his psychological stress. Too jumpy in that sense. Plus, there are dangling plot and emotional threads discarded at the frayed edges of the whole film. Could have used another 15 min of exploration/tie-ups.

Overall, satisfying, if ultimately forgettable. Surface level, in so many ways, but still pleasing enough for the hour 40.