Directed by: Shintaro Shimosawa
Starring: Josh Duhamel, Alive Eve, Al Pacino, Anthony Hopkins, Malin Akerman, Byung-Hun Lee, Julia Stiles
I have never seen a collective film cast perform as if the actors were forced to appear to pay off a gambling debt. That is the feeling you get from watching Misconduct, a thriller that is a misstep from the opening moments and never lets up. We don't care about any of the characters or what happens to them. There are entanglements and plot twists to be sure, but the only thing they accomplish is adding to the film's running time. There are acting legends who appear it (Pacino and Hopkins) and actors who have been better in other films. Misconduct has straight-to-DVD written all over it.
The film begins with a bad day in the life of Arthur Denning (Hopkins), a pharmaceutical company CEO in the middle of a potentially damaging lawsuit. He has a fight with his younger blonde girlfriend Emily (Akerman) and hours later receives texts saying she was kidnapped and beaten. The kidnappers demand a $2.5 million ransom. Judging by Denning's behavior towards her, it's not likely he would pay $25.00 to get her back, let alone $2.5 million. In fact, I picture him channeling Danny DeVito in Ruthless People and telling the kidnappers, "I dare you to kill her."
Denning agrees to pay the ransom, most likely because of ominous texts stating, "I know what you did." Whatever it was, it's worth $2.5 million to him which he brings along in small bills to an art gallery. Instead of paying the ransom, he punches out a guy who appears to be the kidnapper, but we know certainly can't be, because we have all seen movies before. That is the last we see of Hopkins for a while, as the film flashes back to "One Week Earlier" and we witness what led us up to Hopkins' knockout punch.
One week prior, Ben Cahill (Duhamel), a hotshot, rising attorney with a troubled home life, is contacted by Emily (his former flame) who wants to seduce Ben and provide him with damning evidence against Denning proving he forged clinical trial results to push through FDA approval on a new drug. She doesn't quite seduce Ben, although they do kiss and engage in some near rumpy-pumpy. Ben uses the evidence to pursue the lawsuit with the cautionary blessing of his boss Abrams (Pacino). Pacino puts on a Southern accent (the movie takes place in New Orleans), while no one else even bothers, and clearly is more involved than he seems. There is talk of Abrams previously going after Denning, but coming up empty each time. Maybe this will be the case where Abrams finally gets Denning. Who even knows or cares?
A shadowy guy is snooping around also, known only as The Accountant (Lee), whose name I had to look up on the imdb.com credits for this film. I wouldn't have known any other way. He is dying from one of those lung diseases where he coughs up blood on cue. Who hired him? What is his mission? Even after a climactic fight between he and Ben, we still don't know. He kidnaps Ben's wife Charlotte (Eve), a nurse still feeling the pain of losing a child months earlier. Eve is normally a fun actress to watch (and not just because she's hot), but in Misconduct she has the emotional range of a T-1000 Terminator. Side note: Lee played a T-1000 in Terminator: Genisys, so maybe he gave Eve pointers.
All of the chases, fights, and shootings are at the service of such a nothing story. Charlotte plays a bigger part in the events to follow than at first seems, but after she explains her role in things to her husband, he simply blows it off and goes about his business. Is the screenwriter trying to be ironic and cool about the whole thing? Or surprise us with an unusual reaction to her story? Or is it because Duhamel managed to go through the entire movie without betraying any emotions, so the filmmakers figured why start now? He isn't the only one. The entire cast invests as little feeling into this movie as possible. We are almost tempted to take their pulses.
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