Review: Daughter of God

New York police detective Keanu Reeves isn’t having a good time of it. His partner has been murdered, his wife has died, and he doesn’t see his kid much. His boss (Christopher McDonald) doesn’t seem pleased with Reeves digging into the case, but he is nonetheless undeterred. He starts to suspect that devoutly religious Ana de Armas is a key to solving the mystery. Meanwhile, we follow de Armas (who witnessed the crime). She’s a sweet school teacher with a Dominican family, and a fiancé who gets killed fighting in Iraq. She believes angels visit her, and when she becomes pregnant, she believes it to be a miracle, something her family strenuously disagree with. Mira Sorvino plays the dead officer’s widow, and Big Daddy Kane (not bad) plays a crim named Black.

 

The story goes that this 2016 film was changed during the editing process from what writer/director Gee Malik Linton (his first and so far only feature film project) had originally envisioned, causing the filmmaker to remove his name and replace it with the pseudonym Declan Dale. I don’t really need to tell you the name of the shit-weasel company involved, do I? We all know what it is, because it’s always the same bunch of arseholes at fault, whether through interference or just awful (lack of) distribution. In this case, it was definitely interference to blame, though I’m sure the studio will claim they were misled on what kind of film they were getting involved with. What was envisioned as a bi-lingual drama mostly focussing on Ana de Armas, is now a somewhat offbeat, supernaturally-tinged cop-thriller starring Keanu Reeves (who produced, interestingly enough) and de Armas, but with things definitely skewed more in Reeves’ direction. It doesn’t work. At all. Despite seeing this under the title given to Linton’s own intended cut of the film, the version I saw was indeed the same re-cut version (known elsewhere as “Exposed” for fuck knows what reason) focussing more on Keanu and the change in focus is obvious. I wouldn’t go so far as to call this version a generic cop-thriller, but it’s certainly not a good film and I’m not remotely surprised it didn’t hit theatres here.

 

Keanu’s not that much of an actor, but in a role that was apparently originally envisioned for the late Philip Seymour Hoffman (it’s been in development since freaking 2009!), he’s certainly not bad. At least he’s not all bug-fuck crazy like say, Nic Cage would’ve been in the role, and it’s probably one of his better performances to date. The gaunt, older looking Reeves looks to be chewing glass here. The normally laidback actor seems like a powder-keg ready to explode. It strangely never happens, though. Although the film as I’ve seen it now de-emphasises her, there’s still no doubt that this is de Armas’ show. I wasn’t impressed with her at all in her previous pairing with Reeves (“Knock, Knock”), but the Mia Kirschner-lookalike is magnetic, luminous and definitely a standout. She’s the best thing here. In support, Christopher McDonald now plays serious roles, but isn’t terribly good at it, and Mira Sorvino is still an actress. Who knew? I’m almost convinced that Sorvino’s Oscar win for “Mighty Aphrodite” was a mistake, because I don’t believe I’ve ever seen her give one good performance to date. This certainly isn’t good, she’s way over the top and still can’t do accents, despite actually being from Manhattan, where the film is set. She exaggerates the accent like a total amateur (At least to this completely unqualified Australian’s ears).

 

Look, this is just a mess. It’s an occasionally interesting mess, but overall very unsure of itself. It takes so damn long for the Reeves and de Armas characters to cross paths that it feels like Reeves’ character has been tacked on. That is clearly indicative of the studio interference, as they (probably with producer/star Reeves’ backing or at least no protest) have tried to turn the film into something it was never intended to be, and as a result we feel like the Reeves character and the de Armas storyline are meant to converge earlier and stronger. My guess is that in the original cut, it’d play a lot smoother.

 

It’s not boring, but this studio-molested flick never manages to come together. It plays like an awkward mixture of two separate films. Some of the performances are fine, but overall this is a failure. You sure can’t take your eyes off Ana de Armas, though. Oh, and it was fucking Lionsgate. Bastards.

 

Rating: C-