Hangman dies a quick death at the box office

Movie Title: Hangman

Grade: C

Rating: R

In a Nutshell: Al Pacino. There’s THAT. This is the eighth time he has played a police detective.

The old-school child’s spelling game, Hangman, held promise for a good thriller, but the movie disappoints in a pretty mediocre paint by numbers who-dunnit.

Uplifting theme:

“Sometimes finding out the truth leaves scars.” – Christi Davies (Brittany Snow)
“Scars tell stories.” – bad guy (I don’t want to tell you who that is!)
Revenge
Friendship

Things I liked:

It was refreshing to see Brittany Snow in a hard-hitting murder mystery, after seeing her in fluffy, fun movies like Pitch Perfect By the way, the 3rd Pitch Perfect movie hits theaters in 3 weeks! I confess, the franchise is a guilty pleasure for me.
Karl Urban plays Detective Ruiney as well as he does “Bones” in Star Trek Into Darkness , although “Bones” is definitely a more interesting character.
I first noticed the beautiful, tough Sarah Shahi when she starred in Person of Interest: S1-5. Her real name is Aahoo Jahansouz and she’s a descendant of a real Persian Shah. Cool. Unfortunately, she seemed too young to be cast as the captain of the police department.

Things I didn’t like:

Typical bad guy monologue at the end.
The cops never take the time to try to figure out what the hangman letters mean. It seems like they could have plugged them into a computer to consider various options. You get to see what the letters spell out towards the very end, but no one even mentions anything about it. Missed opportunity there.
Silly ending.
The whole plot feels contrived and forced with annoying plot holes.

Tips for parents: