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It should have been an open and shut case for Detective Matthews (Bob
Strouse), your typical cop who doesn't always play it by the rules but
gets results: A murder at a school building, David (Mercer Bristow), a
schizophrenic with a violent streak, is apprehended near the building, his
fingerprints are found all over the scene of the crime, and all Matthews
needs now is to get a confession out of David - only the guy soon gets on
his nerves, doesn't really react to his threats of violence, only answers
cryptically, and seems to know more about Matthews than he ought to. And
the more he talks to David, the more David seems to get into Matthews'
head, so much so that his reality starts to crumble, like all the cases
he's put on prove to be just silly wild goose chases while his chief (Rod
Egan) claims he hasn't been sent on any assignments for weeks and
threatens to suspend him, and then there's his partner (Joseph Veltre),
who Matthews finds out is sleeping with his wife (Emily Dabney) - despite
the fact that Matthews doesn't even have a wife. And it really goes on a
downward spiral from there ... Now if you to watch Shatter
as your typical whodunnit and try to follow it on a purely narrative
level, you'll probably eventually get lost - which of course entirely
intentional as this movie takes a standard thriller premise as its
starting point and leaps off into exploring different layers of
perception, to ultimately decieve the audience every now and again, with
fascinating results. And a strong ensemble playing it straight really
helps keeping things grounded, as does a decievingly matter-of-fact
directorial effort. And the result is a pretty fascinating trip down a
rabbit hole.
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