The directorial debut of Jason Stone (best known for being co-writer on inspiration for This is the End, short movie Jay and Seth Versus the Apocalypse) The Calling sees Hazel Micallef (Susan Sarandon), a police detective in the small Canadian town of Fort Dundas, investigating the brutal murder of one of the towns inhabitants. When one body leads to another and another, Micallef and her team, including new recruit Ben (Topher Grace), come to realize the religious fanatic (Christopher Heyerdhal) behind the murders is only just beginning.
A totally engaging police prcedural, The Calling makes great use of the gloomy Canadian wilderness, all dense forests and barren, snow covered fields , to instill a nice sense of dread into proceedings. It hits the ground running, with the first act more concerned with personal lives of Micallef and those who surround her. It does a great job of building up the characters, especially Sarandon, who makes for a great flawed hero, and her numerous flaws make for a deeper story beyond the hunt for a serial killer. But once the story heads into the second act, with the police always one step behind Heyerdhal's unassuming murderer, it firmly settles into Seven-esque thriller territory, with grisly crime scenes punctuating the action. It is still totally effective, with a great pace, and Stone shows a knack for building tension, but most of the character work done in the first act feels like it was dumped and forgotten about, only to return in the finale for a predictable pay off. Despite not being wholly original, the story is totally absorbing for the most part while it stays grounded in reality, but once more supernatural elements are introduced it begins to become more preposterous as it moves forward, leading a last shot that completely destroys any of the realism it spent the entire movie trying to build.
Sarandon is solid in the lead role, bringing a real human quality to the endlessly flawed Hazel. She spends much of the movie with her guard up, combative to the point of self sabotage, and keeping any emotion hidden deep down. It's because of this, when the third act asks for her to break down, it's fantastic a fantastic punch to the gut. Heyerdhal makes for a endlessly creepy villain, and while his motivation might be generic, he puts in highly memorable performance as a meticulous, soft spoken killer. The supporting cast feel wasted, especially Grace and Donald Sutherland, and aren't given that much to, despite an interesting story beat being raised for Grace's character, but never acted on.
The Calling starts off promising to be more than your generic thriller, and while totally gripping for the most part, it soon becomes more of what we've seen before.
