Young Professor X (James McAvoy) plays a very corrupt cop intent on getting a promotion. He’ll stop at nothing to sabotage his coworkers while he does drugs, breaks the law and celebrates police oppression. For the first act and part of the second, McAvoy tears up the screen behaving more and more outrageously. The trailer promised a pretty outrageous movie and the first half, mostly delivers.
It’s the second half (after the big revelation, spoilers ahead) that kills the movie. It basically establishes McAvoy’s character as being pretty crazy, which kind of undermines his entire deal. There’s a few moments where it looks like he’ll redeem himself, but it doesn’t happen. The dark ending on top of that, really doesn’t work either. This movie probably would’ve worked better as an over-the-top, comedy/satire about the modern police force. Instead, it kind of just peters out.
McAvoy dominates the movie. He’s the star, but there are plenty of other characters that could’ve been fleshed out more. It almost rises above with such a strong start, but in the end, I cannot recommend this flick.
