Misconduct Review

Misconduct follows the story of this somewhat younger and very ambitious lawyer that's trying his best to get ahead in the quickest way possible. He's got it fairly good at the moment with a well put together life with only minor marital problems and decides to throw that away to a degree by being seduced by an ex-girlfriend.

This is a key trigger point in the movie as he's given sensitive case documents which line up against a major pharmaceutical company and primarily their executive (played by Anthony Hopkins). This runs parallel to a recent event in the companies testing which caused many deaths and now Ben Cahill (Josh Duhamel) has decided to take on the case based on this information. This is an alright setup though the movie still stumbled during even the initial setup and it continues to throughout it's entirely.

Ben is given minor bits of advice from the head of company playing by Al Pacino and from there they go after that company with a lawsuit. The lead character also has a bit of a supporting group that provide assistance though they're never developed and just there to give additional items to move the plot along. There are other things that are in the works during the movie as nothing is as it seems, but it mostly just jumbles this around so it's easy, yet hard to follow how the dots get connected.

It was really just such a mess as the story took some liberties to get from place to place. At the start Ben seemed like a regular individual and then somehow became an intense survivor of sorts which didn't make any sense. The character was also incredibly calm around the violence and threats against his life in regards to the big case.

I won't dive into the story much as I don't like spoilers in my reviews, but there are many shifts in characters that don't make any sense. It's also crazy how much the story just jumps around and I also found the cinematography to be a bit nauseous at times with weird angles. Those aspects were quite bad as I usually love dynamic shots, but they just didn't work in this film.

I also found Ben's wife (Alice Eve) to be such a stale character with some very stiff acting to match the part and also given a strange twist in the film which was completely out of nowhere considering other events that happen throughout. I felt that mostly all around the acting could have been better, the main character was alright though I just didn't feel it from anyone else in the film.

The Conclusion

I get what Misconduct was aiming for in the general narrative and the path it took to get there made little to no sense. It was also a rather long film considering it just meandered along and there were many points were I said aloud, "why?".

Also "how did it get to this point, or how and why is this happening". Even towards some of the bigger reveals which was hidden to me only in the fact it made no sense how they developed it just fell flat. I never got any of the motives for the characters and overall the film was just weak. It was also one of the worst films I've watched as the pace felt slow and the action was never thrilling.

The story was just filled with either stiff, awkward or weird characters that shifted their abilities for the situation. I received a Blu Ray copy to review so I'll also go over disc features as it features a "The Making of Misconduct" and "Deleted Scenes" though I found that neither were that interesting to watch.

Misconduct Review at Home with Blu Ray Viewing
Screening Provided by VVS Films

Rating Overall: 2.0