A small, seemingly innocuous plastic reel of film leads surveillance specialist Tom Welles down an increasingly dark and frightening path. With the help of the streetwise Max, he relentlessly follows a bizarre trail of evidence to determine the fate of a complete stranger. As his work turns into obsession, he drifts farther and farther away from his wife, family and simple life as a small-town PI.
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Sometimes entertaining, sometimes terrifying psychological mystery. Tom Wells is a man who must investigate the deepest reaches of depravity and comes out forever changed and twisted by the events herein. I was fully invested in the story and heartbroken watching a normal man see and do more and more deplorable things, becoming a much darker person in turn. I loved Joaquin Phoenix in this. I was surprised when he turned up and really glad when he stuck around for most of the middle of the movie. He added a much-needed lighthearted tone in an otherwise quite dour film. For how gritty and dirty the movie feels, it swings around to a much more hopeful ending, which I really appreciated as I kept expecting something terrible to happen to Wells or his family.