Heel

Boon’s already considerable charisma is somehow magnified by Tommy’s incarceration and Graham and Riseborough prove yet again that they can find humanity in even the most disturbing characters. Please let this not be their last joint project.

Good Boy is doggone exceptional when it comes to the powerhouse acting abilities of Graham and Boon, both of whom take on their roles to showcase opposite ends of the rehabilitation spectrum. But even with talent at the helm both in front of and behind the camera, Kosama’s disjointed thriller is predictable throughout and never reaches the emotionality it seeks from its audience.

Under Komasa’s direction, the mix of fractured fable and terroristic morality play in Bartek Bartosik’s screenplay is absurd but potent, giving Heel enough psychologically twisted juju to nearly always feel like more than the sum of its parts.

Heel wants to have its cake and eat it too, to present this darkly comic absurdity while dipping back into reality only when it suits the film.

What keeps the movie going when the script starts to run out of ink are the brilliant performances all around.

Despite Boon matching Graham’s quiet intensity and Riseborough’s low frequency depression with a gnashing rebellious streak, the three performances can’t lift The Good Boy from the limitations of its own tethered melodrama.

Like many genre films this decade, “Heel” feels glaringly incomplete.