The January Man

Directed by Pat O’Connor, The January Man follows Kevin Kline’s Nick Starkey as he attempts to solve a case involving a serial killer of women. It’s a fairly straightforward premise that’s employed as a springboard for a seriously (and often impressively) oddball, unpredictable piece of work, as filmmaker O’Connor, working from John Patrick Shanley’s screenplay, delivers a hit-and-miss narrative that’s been suffused with a whole host of far-from-standard elements – with, especially, the portrayal of Kline’s off-the-wall figure certainly ranking high on the movie’s list of bizarre attributes. There’s little doubt, then, that The January Man benefits from the engaging efforts of Kline and an impressively stacked supporting cast, with, in terms of the latter, O’Connor eliciting compelling work from such engaging performers as Harvey Keitel, Danny Aiello, and Alan Rickman. (Rod Steiger’s often astonishingly over-the-top turn as the Mayor really does have to be seen to be believed, ultimately.) And while the movie’s midsection contains several subplots that remain underwhelming and uninvolving, with this particularly true of everything involving Susan Sarandon’s off-kilter character, The January Man progresses into an unexpectedly gripping third act devoted to the (surprisingly fascinating) solving of the aforementioned case and Nick’s weird, protracted face-off with the killer – which does, in the end, cement the picture’s place as a mostly watchable thriller that rarely, if ever, unfolds as one might’ve anticipated.

*** out of ****