You haven’t seen this Nicole Kidman
She’s a raw revelation in “Destroyer.” Review,
In “Destroyer,” Nicole Kidman wears a face only a pulpfiction fan – or Dashiell Hammett – could love.
With skeletal, strung-out features, the weathered eyes of a woman who has definitely seen some stuff and leathery skin that hasn’t seen a moisturizer in eons, Kidman gets one seriously hard-boiled makeover and is the best thing about the grimy, twisty crime thriller ( ★★★☆; rated R; in theaters in New York and Los Angeles, opens nationwide Jan. 25). While its narrative is unnecessarily complex and its story influences are obvious, director Karyn Kusama (“The Invitation”) is mostly successful juggling a noir style, shifty denizens and shadowy dealings under L.A.’s bright sun.
LAPD detective Erin Bell (Kidman) enters the scene of a homicide moving like the walking dead, and she’s more of a nuisance than a help to her fellow cops. (She also drinks, doesn’t sleep and is kind of a walking catastrophe.) The city’s latest murder features a dyecovered $100 bill and a body with a familiar tattoo, both of which mean the return of an old foe named Silas (Toby Kebbell) and memories of a heist gone tragically wrong 17 years earlier.
Flashbacks gradually reveal how Erin and her FBI partner, Chris (Sebastian Stan), infiltrated Silas’ bank-robbing gang, an assignment that brought Erin and Chris together romantically but remains a source of tremendous guilt for the antiheroine. It’s that accountability Erin struggles with now as she pays visits to former criminal associates and assorted shady types, from a corrupt lawyer (Bradley Whit- ford) to a rich-girl drug addict (Tatiana Maslany), in order to shake loose information that will lead her to Silas.
Kusama juggles both timelines well and gives each its own vibe: The past story tells how the law enforcement agents’ own morals come into question as they go deeper into a criminal life, though it’s Erin’s present day that’s most intriguing as we watch everything around her fall apart.
That stark contrast comes through in Kidman’s performance, a transformative thing of beauty that keeps the procedurals from feeling too familiar. She has a harrowing existence as a hard-living, raspy detective – there’s no “good cop” to her routine, only “bad cop” – and is pretty much a disaster at home, too. Teen daughter Shelby (Jade Pettyjohn) rebels against Mom by cozying up to a sleazy boyfriend (Beau Knapp), yet another thing chipping away at her frazzled state.
Stan is a Marvel action- movie favorite but again proves his versatility with a solid follow-up to his turn last year in “I, Tonya.” Whitford is enjoyably smarmy, Kebbell strikes a chord as an enigmatic gang leader akin to Patrick Swayze in “Point Break,” and Maslany (“Orphan Black”), imbues the film with primal energy.
Like the heist film “Widows,” “Destroyer” tries to shake up a genre staple, with mixed results. The tropes mostly work, but a third-act narrative swerve ends up complicating matters more than anything.
Kidman is the main draw here. In a modern noir about people unable to escape the darkness of their past, she’s scary good as a tortured woman desperate for redemption yet too often finding herself on a path of destruction.