Damaged review – Samuel L Jackson comes to Edinburgh in crime thriller

Vincent Cassel and Gianni Capaldi complete an improbable trio on the hunt for a serial killer in this absurd police procedural – one for the so-bad-it’s-good genre

Here is what appears to be an authentic so-bad-it’s-good crime thriller, set on the mean streets of Edinburgh and starring the improbable trio of Gianni Capaldi (Blood of Redemption), Samuel L Jackson (Pulp Fiction) and Vincent Cassel (L’Élève). If you’ve ever wondered what a British police procedural television show inexplicably starring this combo of actors would feel like – and why wouldn’t you? – this is the movie for you.

As is traditional, matters begin with a pre-titles cold open featuring a grisly murder: a woman answers the door of her Edinburgh flat to a caped and hooded maniac who proceeds to dismember her. (Per the rules of the subgenre, you don’t see all that much of the murder itself, but you do get all the gory details during the subsequent crime scene photography sequence.) “Why do serial killers always gotta bring this cult shit into it?” Jackson’s character laments. But “this cult shit” is of course practically obligatory. If you’re a killer in one of these films and you’re not hiding torsos in undisclosed locations, laying out limbs and heads in the shape of a cross and having yourself some fun with cryptic references to scripture, can you really call yourself a legitimate movie lunatic?

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