“There’s no such thing as good people,” Marla Grayson (Pike) sneers during the film’s opening credits, as she introduces the closest thing she has to a personal ethos.
What a mistake, because “I Care a Lot,” a pulpy social thriller that might be better suited for midnight movie positioning, is at its most purely enjoyable when it’s leaning right into just how very, very bad people can be. While the film’s first half leans into the icy, often hilarious villainy of such very bad people as a ponytailed crime boss played by Peter Dinklage, a smarmy lawyer (Chris Messina) who dresses as if Colonel Sanders was a stand-up comedian, and star Rosamund Pike, returning to her frosty “Gone Girl” best, its messy final act attempts a brief foray into making some of these outsize monsters more civilized.
Netflix releases the film on its streaming platform on Friday, February 19.įilmmaker J Blakeson makes one fatal flaw in his darkly funny thriller “ I Care a Lot,” an understandable misstep because it seems like such a fundamental addition to any film: he tries to humanize his characters. Editor’s note: This review was originally published at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival.