Dark Crimes (2016)

Dark Crimes is the kind of grim, rain-slick thriller that hooks you less with twists than with a slow, sickening sense that everyone onscreen is wading deeper into moral quicksand. Alexandros Avranas builds an oppressive Warsaw atmosphere where a murder case and a novelist’s pages begin to rhyme in unsettling ways, and the film’s best asset is how seriously it treats that eerie premise. Jim Carrey’s against-type turn is all clenched intensity and frayed nerves, while Marton Csokas and Charlotte Gainsbourg bring a chilly ambiguity that keeps every conversation feeling like a trap. It’s not for everyone—there’s explicit sexual violence and disturbing imagery—but if you can handle the harsh content, it offers a bleak, adult true-crime vibe powered by committed performances and a suffocating mood.

Dark Crimes is clearly aiming for a grim, European-style noir about obsession, corruption, and a detective losing his moral compass, and Jim Carrey does commit to the bleak tone. The problem is the film leans so hard on oppressive misery and shock-value sexual violence that it starts to feel exploitative rather than illuminating, while the mystery itself is too obvious and slow-burning to justify the runtime. If you’re hoping for a clever thriller or even a satisfying procedural, you’ll likely find it dull, repetitive, and more punishing than suspenseful. This is only worth your time if you can stomach explicit, disturbing content and you’re specifically in the mood for a cold, joyless descent with very little payoff.