Published via Ecency

(source: tmdb.org

When character in a film has extraordinarily good looks, it usually comes with nasty twist of fate or certain hidden flaw that would make the plot interesting. The main character of The Wisdom of Crocodiles, 1998 British horror thriller directed by Po-Chih Leong, isn’t an exception. Steven Grlcz (played by Jude Law) is medical technician who lives in London and, thanks to his stunning looks, doesn’t have any problems in finding female company. The only problem is that all his girlfriends tend to die in unusual circumstances. The last one is Maria Vaughn (played by Kerry Fox), suicidal woman whom he had dissuaded from taking her own life only to bite her neck and drink her blood while making love afterwords. Steven knows that is something quite wrong with him, but as handsome, intelligent and independently wealthy man he easily manages to hide incriminating evidence and even goes searching for new victims. His next choice is engineer Anne Levels (played by Elina Löwensohn), but romancing her get complicated when his last victim’s body is accidentally discovered. Police Inspector Healy (played by Timothy Spall) doesn’t take much to connect Steven with the victim, so the cat and mouse games between vampire-like killer and tenacious policemen begins.

The Wisdom of Crocodiles (also distributed under alternative title Immortality) is based on the concept that tries to reimagine vampirism in the context of modern society, in some ways similar to Abel Ferrara’s The Addiction. Script by Paul Hoffman, writer who would later become famous for Left Hand of God trilogy of fantasy novels, however, misses almost all opportunities in his revisionist treatment of vampires and fills the film with all the cliches much better used in 1990s vampire-themed films and television shows like Interview with the Vampire and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. All the hard work is supposed to be done by Hong Kong director Po-Chih Leong who tries to compensate substance with a plenty of style, but it can’t prevent The Wisdom of Crocodiles turning into insufferably pretentious art drama. Casting is interesting, although not always fortunate. Jude Law is brought mostly on the account of his looks, but his character looks less complex and interesting than vampires played by Brad Pitt in Interview or David Boreanaz in Buffy. Elina Löwensohn is likely to bring too many associations and comparisons to the vampire character she played in Nadja, film which covered same subject in more inventive ways. Even otherwise good character actor Timothy Spall appears to be too uptight in his role of police detective. Because of that, The Wisdom of Crocodiles represents one of the more disappointing movies of its time and can’t be recommended even to Jude Law’s fans.