The plot of “Dark Crimes” strays quite far from the true story that inspired it. Carrey plays a cop who is a former shell of his former self, a sunken-eyed walking skeleton who hates his job, hates his wife, and hates his kid. He finds new life when investigating a murder in an underground nightclub devoted to violent public sex acts. Tadek’s investigations lead him to the Csokas character, as he knows a lot about the way the underground Polish sex industry seems to function. Csokas knows a lot about the murder. Maybe a little too much.
Tadek, meanwhile, starts to become obsessed with underground sex clubs, and begins having a strange relationship with the Csokas character’s ex-girlfriend, played by Charlotte Gainsbourg.
The issue with “Dark Crimes” is that Tadek’s obsession with violent sex clubs doesn’t seem to be motivated by anything. Tadek is too hollow-eyed and detached to appear to be getting a prurient thrill from them, nor does his righteousness gland activate, causing him to develop humanity or warmth in opposition to the bleak, sexy underground. He and Csokas have a few conversations about how the world is meaningless and nothing can be solved, but even their mutual nihilism isn’t presented as darkly appealing.
Nihilism can be alluring, of course. Ask any 16-year-old. Also, hopeless, nihilistic films can be exhilarating; indeed, be sure to check out the American Cinematheque’s Bleak Week. But “Dark Crimes” doesn’t seem to understand even that much. It merely presents a world of violence and crime and populates it with barely-walking skeletons who, to be quite frank, are deathly dull to watch.
Reviews were unilaterally terrible, with some critics give it a 0 out of 10. In my own 2018 review, I gave it a 3.