Into the Labyrinth

But with puzzling bits and pieces as though sections have been edited-for example: the origin of the relationship between a prostitute and a criminal tracker, with references to a girl, known to both, who he couldn't save. Later, the killer being tracked deduces both the man who is hunting him and also his relationship with the prostitute...to lure him off of the trail, in an elaborate and improbable ruse that the killer appears to survive only by luck and the tracker's grace.

Dustin Hoffman, despite reports that he is losing his memory, manages to turn in a typically gifted performance. Not the man's first day on the job, even if he is making Russian-produced movies now. He doesn't disappoint. There are several other interesting performances as well as some that are pure schlock.

The design is also uneven, with an inspired division of cold case child abductions, aptly named "Limbo" and some sets that are practically out of an amusement park's haunted house. The style of story-telling itself, switches genre several times; a rocky journey between dream-like, heightened sequences that were not literal and those which appeared intended to be.

As a result, the general feeling is one of a pastiche of tropes used in other, better, movies.

Despite all of my criticism, the film was engaging and clever when it wasn't lost and ham-fisted. I liked that it was told simply, with mostly interior shots...landscape was saved for moments of impact, instead of thrown away in the type of lazy spoon-fed narrative this movie shares nothing in common with.

A scholar of Dante's work will surely draw more parallels than I did-this was written by an Italian author and set in Italy. I caught only very obvious references, such as a map of the maze comprising (I am pretty sure) the right number of levels to make the dungeon Hell.

Worth a look. Better than a lot out there.