Come on guys, when it comes to film noir, you can count on me, but it’s a shame that since the genre became popular in the 1940s, they’ve rarely managed to come close and do something decent. In part, because a good noir features a macho, alcoholic detective and a woman misogynistic ally described as “fatale”, that is, seductive and mysterious, in today’s times it’s much harder to deliver something that connects with the female audience. Still, I checked out The Killer Heat, which made me suffer from start to finish.

Rule number 1 of noir: everything that detective Nick Bali (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) describes in the opening will come back at the end. The first image is of Richard Madden climbing a mountain in Greece and plummeting to his death. In the next scene, we see him at the funeral, so there’s the old story of the identical twin brothers, Leo and Elias, robotically played by him in a way that you can’t tell who’s who, but he hates them both.

Rule number 2: whoever hires the detective has some involvement with the crime. In this case, the victim’s sister-in-law Penelope Vardakis (Shailene Woodley).

But let’s get to the plot: After the accidental death of Elias Vardakis, his sister-in-law hires detective Nick Bali to find out if it wasn’t actually murder. The Vardakises own a large transportation company based in Crete and don’t want the traumatic death to disrupt business. Honestly, I figured out the mystery literally in the first scene, but I’m in the field I love, so I figure if it takes 10 minutes, it’s fair.

The story is an adaptation of the short story by Norwegian writer Jo Nesbø, “The Jealousy Man”, but those who read it felt it lacked the heat and tension of the twists and turns. The coldness with which the story is conducted by director Philippe Lacôte does not highlight Gordon-Levitt’s eternal charisma and reduces Shailene to pool and beach scenes, leaving us bored long before any revelation. It’s a shame because four years ago her Night of the Kings was highly praised.

Without depth, there is no essential for films of this genre: Mystery. It is an endless parade of clichés in rushed scenes. At least there is the Greek scenery to distract us!

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