An elite group of mercenaries led by special forces veteran Keil (Piotr Witkowski) is assigned the job of recovering hostage Eliza Mazura (Michalina Olszanska) and the intel she possesses from detainment in a nearby country. Once they recover the data she has, the squad is soon drawn into a messy situation involving a new weapon that drives its victims into a killing rage. Now they must prevent this weapon from being abused by dangerous political elements in the Polish action-thriller Soulcatcher, directed by Daniel Markowicz and written by Dawid Kowalewicz and Daniel Markowicz.
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At the core of the film, Soulcatcher holds the potential to be a solid action movie. An interesting plot with a couple of interesting, if predictable twists could work for a reasonable storytelling experience. However, the film’s narrative tries to do far too much, without delivering the quality of action necessary to bring the film together.
The first thing I noticed when I began viewing this film was its short, one-and-a-half-hour runtime. This feature length can work well for a movie that just plans to clip from one action sequence to another, with minimal narrative and lots of pop. Sadly, Soulcatcher opts to try to wedge far too much into this short length to allow any of it to land. The emotional moments never feel earned, as the characters they happen to are barely known to the viewer, and character motives are poorly built, making the viewer often simply accept motivations and goals, without a clear feeling for how they connect to the personality carrying them. This leaves the character side of the story wanting in every respect.
Now, as an action movie, one could hope that the many fight scenes and gun battles might be able to at least elevate the film to the point of entertainment. Unfortunately, they cannot. Action choreography has come a long way, with the best delivering brilliant, artistic movements, or brutal, painful finishers. This movie manages neither as the gun fights always feel too slow, and the hand-to-hand combat doesn’t deliver enough style, or land with enough power, to make it memorable.
The acting throughout the film manages to deliver on its characters well enough to do no further harm to the hasty character progression but is never enough to elevate the film either. Witkowski carries the film’s focus well enough and does his best to push Keil’s shifting motivations through to the viewer throughout his time on screen. Coupled with a few solid supporting performances and the acting manages to be a net gain for the film.
As mentioned at the beginning, Soulcatcher does have the structure of a solid action narrative. The plot manages to transition from “just another operation” to something that is both more personal to Keil and company, as well as far grander in scope quite smoothly. The setups for fight scenes are well done, with the special nature of the new weapon the team must contend with has the potential for some interesting battles if they were executed better.
Another important note is that during the film’s climactic fight scene, an extended period features a hard strobe light effect. Anyone who may be photosensitive might want to steer clear of this sequence. Trust me, the film is not worth the risk.
Soulcatcher is ultimately not worth anyone’s time. While there is a strong skeletal structure for a solid action movie here, there is far too little meat on the bones to make it worth watching.
Soulcatcher is streaming now on Netflix.
