There are two major problems, though. One is that the casting is good but rarely spot-on; this lessens the impact of the film's many tense and/or violent situations because the actors either aren't electrifying enough to take the confrontations into the stratosphere or else Krauss never quite figured out how to guide them to that place. The biggest letdown is Skarsgård, who seems to be going for "stone killer" but often seems merely stoned, letting his extreme height and glassy-eyed "just try it" expression carry too much of the character's psychic and (a)moral weight.
Wolff does the best he can with a blank slate male ingenue part, which, to be fair, anchors the other, superior movies I've cited higher up, blanding out moments that needed more than earnestness and moral confusion. The supporting characters register more strongly, but don't have enough spotlight moments to lodge in the memory. The major exception is Adam Long's Rayburn, a grinning bully and troublemaker who immediately positions himself as Deeks' strong right hand. Long has a fire-starting gaze and razor-edged smirk, like a baby Lee Marvin; in some scenes, he dominates his costars so thoroughly that you might wonder if he might've been a better choice for Deeks, despite his youth.
It's might not be fair to the movie to say this, considering how closely it hews to real and thoroughly reported events, but there are too many familiar beats planted in too many expected spots on the timeline, and even the best acting can't stop you from returning to an unpleasant fact: all of these characters are types of one sort or another. The widescreen cinematography (by Stéphane Fontaine, a regular collaborator of Jacques Audiard) is not inspired enough to carry the film past its rough patches; it's your standard handheld panoramic battle zone imagery, reminiscent of "The Hurt Locker," which was released the same year that this movie is set in, but with somewhat more attention paid to framing and color.
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