BY WEBSTER TILTON Consider the sledgehammer. It is inelegant, blunt, heavy, and simple. A tool for brute force work, like tearing down a wall. But are there not walls in need of wrecking? And even if there is no wall to give you offense and thereby render the sledgehammer useful, cannot the humble s...

BY WEBSTER TILTON 

Consider the sledgehammer.

It is inelegant, blunt, heavy, and simple. A tool for brute force work, like tearing down a wall. But are there not walls in need of wrecking? And even if there is no wall to give you offense and thereby render the sledgehammer useful, cannot the humble sledgehammer be well-crafted and worthy in its own right? Cannot its head be of the finest steel and its shaft be of the finest…sledgehammer shaft material? Cannot the workmanship and quality be admired for their own sake, though it may lack the versatility and exalted status of the noble screwdriver?
I have no idea. But the makers of “In The Shadow of the Moon” had better hope so.

::sigh::

It’d been a couple of years since I ran into one of these but back then I invented a term for it. I called it the “Sledgehammer allegory”. I forget which movie it was, but you get the idea.

My verdict up front: It’s not awful; The movie is functional. There aren’t any gaping plot holes, the acting is pretty good, and the technical aspects (sound, camera work, cinematography, etc…) are excellent. There are definitely some good things about this movie. But there are some glaring problems that’ll yank you right out of it if you make the mistake of using your brain while you’re watching it. Spoilers ahead, here we go.

“In the Shadow of the Moon” is a well-intentioned Terminator rip-off starring Boyd Holbrook, from seasons 1 and 2 of Narcos, and also the guy who played Dexter.
To summarize; In the early 1980s officer Tommy Lockhart (Holbrook) and his partner Maddox catch a bizarre call during a graveyard shift. A young black woman has inexplicably killed a bunch of seemingly random people all over the city of Philadelphia with an unknown toxic substance. The killer gets killed during a fight in a subway station, but somehow keeps coming back every nine years to commit more murders, and somehow she knows a lot about Lockhart’s family.
Before I start ripping this movie apart, let me take a moment to praise the opening. Sitting at home watching it on my couch felt like watching the first twenty minutes of The Dark Knight on release day. The production value was excellent, the music was extremely well done, as was the pacing and the camerawork. It burns up the screen, keeping you riveted to what feels like is going to be a legitimate thriller movie…and then came an awkward tonal shift into to a cartoonish police procedural montage set to rock music. Anyway…

Nine years later another round of identical murders starts and Lockhart is called in, much to the anger of a mob of protestors who are furious that Lockhart (a white cop) wasn’t fired after killing an ‘unarmed black woman’ in the subway fight. This will become important later. Then Lockhart is then approached out of nowhere by an astrophysicist because the director was afraid the audience wouldn’t understand the time travel plot if it wasn’t spelled out. But I don’t bash movies because of the hocus pocus they need to make the plot work. I bash them for bad story structure, bad tonal shifts, bad writing and bad acting. Of which this movie has plenty.

If instead Lockhart went looking for an expert to help him understand things, then there’d be an organic reason for scientist man to be in the film. And since this whole movie is a straight Terminator time loop ripoff, it would have worked on that level too because (stop me if you’ve heard this one) scientist man winds up developing the time travel technology that makes these murders possible. Later, Lockhart’s black partner Maddox gets killed during a confrontation with the assassin. But Lockhart is so busy having expository dialogue with her that he doesn’t have time to experience any sadness, rage, horror or grief. But that’s ok because thirty seconds later his obsession with the case has turned him into an unemployed hobo, estranged from his daughter, with no bridging scenes or transition of any kind to ease us into it. He also turns into an ‘instant believer’ in time travel, because the plot needs him to. And (instead of realizing that nobody will believe him so he’d better keep this to himself) he tells his family about it and they write him off as crazy, because the plot needs them to. If they don’t then he isn’t suffering for the sake of his quest and the film has no emotional core. The core that it does have works well enough, but it would have been a lot better if the buildup scenes weren’t heavily telegraphed it every single time.

Lockhart discovers white supremacist connections between most of the victims (hint, hint), and the exact moment the assassin will reappear. Nine years later he lays in wait, while listening to a voicemail from his pregnant daughter asking him to attend the birth. Suddenly scientist man reappears and kidnaps Lockhart to prevent him from interfering because he now realizes that assassin-girl is trying to stop something far worse than a few murders. This is quickly confirmed by assassin-girl, who explains that it’s her job to prevent a cataclysmic Civil War. A bunch of bystanders got killed too, but there was no way to avoid it. Also, she’s Lockhart’s granddaughter… because of course she is. We’re then treated to a closing montage of Lockhart’s daughter and her black husband (subtle, huh?) having their baby while the assassin’s voiceover justifies the murders as necessary to prevent The End of the World and she asks Lockhart (stop me if you’ve heard this one) to raise her to go back in time on this same mission when she’s an adult.

The movie ends on a ‘hopeful’ note with Lockhart holding his baby granddaughter who will eventually grow up to murder a bunch of racists before they commit any crimes, as opposed to, you know, attempting to talk to them before murdering them. But a movie about time traveling counselors trying to avert a racist civil war by changing people’s minds wouldn’t have had a lot of gunfire, car chases and explosions. Instead you’d have things like character development, multilayered acting, social commentary, interesting dialogue and complex conflicts that force difficult choices. Although, if you did that then you’d be prioritizing an emotional connection with the audience over making the audience feel good about our hero murdering bad guys who haven’t done anything yet…so that’s out.

Consider the sledgehammer. It’s perfect for some jobs, because not all jobs require subtlety or finesse. But if you clone James Cameron’s sledgehammer word for word, he’s probably going to sue you.