Embittered over his preteen daughter's rape and murder, an intelligence officer kidnaps the chief suspect and sets about torturing him with the assistance of a former detective in this gripping Israeli thriller. From the premise alone, 'Big Bad Wolves' might sound like a sadistic 'torture porn' movie, however, the focus of the film is the torturers themselves and their unflinching certainty that they have the right man despite his ongoing protests of innocence and the severe lack of evidence against him. Have the torturers let their emotions overcome them and get in the way of sound judgment, or could they actually be right? It is an interesting central dynamic, however, the film would have benefited from greater ambiguity. It is made so abundantly clear that the torture victim is innocent that we are constantly on his side throughout and never really on the side of the intelligent officer and detective. The initially shocking ending also makes less and less sense the more one thinks about it and the comedy angle often awkwardly subtracts from the grimness of the tale. That said, there are admittedly some genuine laughs in the mix. The film is enticing the whole way too; certain scenes are so brutal that they are hard to watch, but there is a welcome intensity in the air with the lingering questions of just how far the torturers will go and just how much suffering their victim will undergo before he confesses (regardless of actual guilt) as the pain becomes too much. The acting is top notch, especially from Doval'e Glickman, and the sets and music are appropriately ominous.
Review of Big Bad Wolves
