Whenever a movie has a very limited theatrical run and/or quickly appears on direct-to-video services, one can usually guess the studios decided -whether right or wrong- said features are not strong enough to spend the extra money in promoting it and having a full theatrical run.

These films most certainly could be good but, perhaps even more easily, might be a complete bust.

Often direct to video films star lesser known actors and are low budget affairs.  This happens frequently but not always.  Sometimes these movies may surprise you by featuring one time very big name actors.  Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, a trio of such big league actions stars, have nonetheless each had films released via this format.  In their prime, this would probably never happen, but time passes and these stars no longer command the best and brightest directors and writers for their work.

There are other exceptions to be found, and one of the strangest of them all, to my mind, is the film Dark Places.  Why do I feel this is a strange case?

Because the film features a very hot “A” list star in Charlize Theron who just appeared as what was arguably the star of one of this summer’s biggest box office/critical successes in Mad Max: Fury Road.  Further, the film she’s in is an adaptation of a currently very hot author’s novel.  Finally, the story featured in this movie may have drawn Ms. Theron because it touches somewhat on her own personal tragedy when growing up, which means Ms. Theron might have given the role an extra effort in the realization, perhaps something along the line of her critically acclaimed work in Monster.

If there were ever enough ingredients to expect a film would at the very least be a sure fire theatrical release it was this one.  Yet Dark Places, as mentioned, only received a very limited theatrical release before being thrown into the home video market.

With all that in mind, I nonetheless remained curious to see the film and, when given the opportunity yesterday, I did just that, though I lowered my expectations even more than usual.  So, was the film a bust like the studios felt or were they wrong in showing such little faith in this movie?

Read on…read on…

Based on the novel by Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn, Dark Places is the story of Libby Day (Charlize Theron) a woman who, as a young girl, had her mother and two sisters brutally murdered by what was believed to be her then 15 year old brother.  She was the only one to escape the massacre and, in court, fingered her brother for the crime.

Now an adult, LIbby is a woman who has benefited from the notoriety of this sensational crime.  She’s made money by releasing a book (she later claims she never read it and didn’t write it) and, for a time, also received money from well wishers.

But twenty eight years later, the money is drying up and Libby is in deep financial straits.  Her rent hasn’t been paid for two months and electricity to her house has been cut off.  Her financial adviser presents her with some letters from organizations and groups interested in paying her to appear at their events, events that deal with crimes.

Desperate to score money, Libby agrees to meet up with Lyle Wirth (Mad Max: Fury Road co-star Nicholas Hoult) who runs a “Crime Club”.  Though not interested in re-living the tragedy of her past, she accepts money from him to attend what turns out to be a fractious meeting of his Crime Club.  The members of the club, Libby finds, all believe her brother innocent of the murders and want Libby to re-examine the crime.  Libby tells the members off but something awakens within her.  Later on she again contacts Wirth and, while insisting this is all about money, agrees to allow him to “hire” her for 3 weeks time during which she will go over her case.

What follows are flashbacks and detective work performed, for the most part, by LIbby.  She re-establishes contact with her brother, who remains in jail.  She is terrified by him yet he doesn’t appear to be the monster she expected.  Nonetheless, the now grown man refuses to tell Libby whether he committed the crimes and that makes her believe there’s more to the story than what she remembers.

Despite lowering my expectations waaaay down with Dark Places, the movie proved a slog.  Clocking in at just over two hours long, the film feels overlong yet curiously underdeveloped.  The main mystery is never as intriguing as one would hope and the revelations, when they come, rely too much on coincidence.  Without getting into too many SPOILERS, suffice it to say that the night of the crime several events magically lined up to create this singular event…and its a whopper of a thing to swallow, as much of a whopper to swallow when all is magically uncovered all those years later.

Despite a strong cast and decent acting, Dark Places is too slow, too un-involving, and ultimately too coincidental in its resolution to accept.  It’s therefore not too terribly surprising the film wasn’t given a broader release.