Critic Reviews

I Came By elevates a pulpy serial killer premise with fun casting and surprising story beats.

It’s in the writing where this one shines. Less in the moment-by-moment dialogue between characters, which is functional to a tee, and more in the way in which the clever plot is constructed and vital details are gradually teased out.

Mr. Bonneville, having a well of viewer good will on which to draw, makes a perversely convincing villain, the extent of whose offenses are progressively appalling.

I Came By is undeniably well-composed and entertaining enough for its missteps to be overlooked most of the time. Yes, it’s a rewrite short of greatness, but Bonneville makes it worth a visit even if its final needle drop over the credits is indicative of its shallowness.

The film’s distractingly scattered in its attempt to capture the full breadth and width of its social commentary. In fact, it’s so stuffed with tangentially related ideas that even its timeline feels confusing and difficult to follow, signalled only by the erratic changes in McKay’s hair colour.

Director/co-writer Babak Anvari made a startling debut with Under the Shadow (2015), but like his follow-up, Wounds (2019), this is a shakier pot-boiler – diverting, provocative in spots, a little head-scratchy in plot terms. The secret weapon is Ascott, an actor you itch to see cast in more films

It doesn’t always work, but an unexpected, perfectly pitched bad-guy turn from national treasure Hugh Bonneville makes I Came By just about worth stopping by for.

Whenever the energy starts to flag, Anvari can always come back to Bonneville, who is magnificently oily as Blake: a man who has convinced the world he’s a nice guy, though every now and then the mask slips and we see the anger and bigotry bubbling beneath.

The anger within this movie becomes muted along with its thrills. Anvari has proven to be a roller coaster horror filmmaker who should flourish with such freedom, but he loses the momentum here by his own design.

Bonneville’s performance will linger, the film not so much.