Movie Review: MINDCAGE

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: December 16th, 2022 / 02:35 PM

Rating: R
Stars: John Malkovich, Martin Lawrence, Melissa Roxburgh, Jacob Grodnik, Aiden Turner, Neb Chupin, Rob Knepper
Writer: Reggie Keyohara III
Director: Mauro Borrelli
Distributor: Lionsgate
Release Date: December 16, 2022

1991’s THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS may not have invented the premise of a newly-minted law enforcement person consulting with an incarcerated serial killer to solve a current serial killer case. However, that’s the film most associated with the format. It has often been imitated, but never bested.

For quite a while, MINDCAGE seems to be going by the LAMBS playbook. It makes an astonishing ninety-degree turn, but the screenplay by Reggie Keyohara III sets up its twists fair and square.

Relatively new big city sheriff’s department detective Mary Kelly (Melissa Roxburgh) is partnered with veteran detective Jake Doyle (Martin Lawrence). Mary is married to Dale (Aiden Turner, not to be confused with Irish actor Aidan Turner), who is disappointed that Mary refuses to see her estranged, dying father.

Jake previously handled the case of a killer, Lefevre (John Malkovich), known as “The Artist,”, who murdered six sex workers and costumed and posed their bodies as angels, complete with wings.

Since Lefevre is locked in a solitary cell in a mental hospital, he’s not a suspect when a copycat strikes, but the murders are so similar that it seems likely that Lefevre may know the new culprit’s identity. Since Lefevre and Jake already have a hostile history, Mary is sent in to draw the Artist out. Lefevre says he’ll cooperate, in exchange for a commutation of his death sentence to life in prison, and for more art materials in his cell.

Melissa Roxburgh and Martin Lawrence in MINDCAGE | ©2022 Lionsgate/Danielle Mathias

Director Mauro Borrelli knows how to compose macabre religious imagery, and he mostly keeps the cast on the same level. Malkovich is restrained, Roxburgh is properly plucky and shrewd, and Lawrence, in a rare dramatic turn, puts across solid rage.

For its first two-thirds, MINDCAGE plays within our expectations of its template. Mary does have a back-story trauma that we haven’t heard before but which we don’t immediately connect to the larger story.

Then we get to several revelations and reversals. There’s no discussing them without major spoilers. Because they show up so late in the game, it’s hard to shake off the procedural groove feeling that’s been established. We can admire and enjoy the fact that MINDCAGE winds up doing things we don’t anticipate, but the film might have been better served if it got more outrageous a little earlier.

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