In the Shadow of the Moon reeks of first time writer disease. It’s a promising script, with a very engaging premise. However, it probably needed one or two more revisions to make it even better. But there’s enough going on In the Shadow of the Moon to keep your attention at least a little bit. Sounds like a perfect Netflix film then!
After an ominous view of the fallout of a bombing in Philadelphia in 2024, we flashback to 1988, where Officer Locke (Boyd Holbrook) is on his normal beat with his partner Maddox (Bokeem Woodbine). The pair run into a weird situation, where multiple victims die roughly the same time, and all of them have puncture wounds in the back of their necks. The ambitious Locke sees the pattern alongside his brother in law Detective Holt (Michael C. Hall), and eventually tracks down the mysterious killer (Cleopatra Coleman). On their pursuit, the killer drops a lot of knowledge of Officer Locke without having ever met him, making Locke equally confused and intrigued, especially when in 1997 he sees the puncture wounds happening all over again.
The key to a mystery thriller like In the Shadow of the Moon is finding that balance between revealing new information while not playing your hand until the end of the movie. This movie does a decent job of walking that fine line. We start small, looking at the specific details of the 1988 case. Then we jump ahead 9 years, where we have to catch up on these characters lives and the scope grows a little bitter. Then a little more…and a little more. You get the idea. The movie never fully plays its hand until the final 20 minutes or so, and unfortunately doesn’t fully stick its landing. However, you’ve been intrigued almost the whole way through, and the ending has some emotional catharsis that at least makes it palatable.
But also like other Netflix films, it feels like we’re working on version 3.0 of a script instead of version 10, or 20. In this case, the first half of this script is fine: it’s tense, VERY creepy, and is filled with intrigue and mystery. Plus there’s some real characters with Locke, Maddox, and the killer. The time jumps were a smart idea; the audience won’t be double thinking the time travel and general logic gaps in the screenplay if we’re onto a new timeline every half hour. Once the scale tips into the movie revealing its hand, the story chooses the wrong ending: a Sixth Sense like jaw dropper of a twist that isn’t as clever as the movie thinks it is. This ending makes the story spin in circles for a tad, boring the audience into leaving their Netflix based chilling. Had the reveal been one timeline earlier, In the Shadow of the Moon would have provided multiple characters worth of mystery in the final time period, including giving agency to its characters instead of just letting them wait around, raising the stakes organically by making the choices more personal instead of generically heroic.
Netflix: the home of passable entertainment. In the Shadow of the Moon is almost a poster stream for the Netflix model: engaging enough to have you watch it, but not too engaging that it takes you away from chores you have to do. Or maybe a little make out sesh with the person you love…