Review of Fallen (1998) by Frank D — 20 Nov 2013

Fallen (Gregory Hoblit, 1998).

[originally posted 10Apr2000].

This movie was panned by so many people across so many different reviewing styles that I felt it was high time I saw it. And because it was so resoundingly panned, I really wanted to like it. Unfortunately, the majority were all to right in this case. A brilliant idea was left to rot.

John Hobbes (Training Day's Denzel Washington) is the captor of a serial killer, Edgar Reese (Crash's Elias Koteas, in the film's best role), who is sent to his death laughing and singing and promising that he'd be back. While some discrepancies between Reese and the evidence in the murders he committed nags at Hobbes, a riddle Reese asked him shortly before the execution turns up the suicide of a policeman thirty years ago and entangles Hobbes in the web that binds these two cases together with thousands of years of history and the supernatural.

Yeah, it's a great premise. Too bad it's given such short shrift in here. Every aspect of this film was done better in Se7en, despite the difference in their machinations (the killer in Fallen really IS supernatural), and held up against its predecessor, Fallen leaves a whole lot to be desired. **.