Dead Man Down

This two-pronged revenge thriller stars Colin Farrell as a man who infiltrates the gang responsible for the deaths of his wife and daughter, plotting grisly justice for kingpin Terrence Howard and his henchmen. When neighbour Noomi Rapace witnesses Farrell murder one of the bad guys, she threatens to go to the cops unless he also kills the drunk driver who disfigured her in an accident. Danish director Niels Arden Oplev (who directed Rapace in the original The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) adds a few European flourishes to a solid noir premise, but the constant need for dialogue to fill in an unnecessarily complicated backstory tends to interrupt the pace of the film. Farrell is relatively charismatic as the numbed but determined avenger, but Howard and Rapace's roles are frustratingly one-dimensional.