Cop Miki (Lior Ashkenazi) is so sure teacher Dror (Rotem Keinan) is a
serial pedophile/killer that he and two of his men torture him in an empty
warehouse to get the location of his latest victim out of him - but his
boss (Dvir Benedek) gets wind of it, interferes and orders him to let Dror
go for lack of evidence. The next day, they find the pedophile's beheaded
latest victim, dead and mutilated. Miki is demoted, and when a video of
him mistreating Dror pops up on YouTube, he's suspended from duty - which
is all the better because now he figures he can kidnap Dror and make him
confess but good ... and so he does, but what he doesn't know is that Gidi
(Tzahi Grad), the last victim's father, had the same idea, and seeing that
Miki has beaten him to it, he just knocks out Miki and Dror and drags them
both to the basement of his remote house in the country. Initially, he
plans to kill Miki because he makes him partly responsible for his
daughter's death, but then he figures it might be a better idea to leave
the policeman alive, especially since they have similar plans. When it
comes to torturing Dror, Miki is at first Gidi's willful helper, but the
more violent Gidi gets, the more he's willing to listen to Dror's
assertions that he's innocent ... until he actually wants to turn on Gidi,
but Gidi has anticipated that and soon has him chained up. Then Gidi's
father Yoram (Doval'e Glickman) turns up, and at first Gidi tries to hide
what's going on in his basement ... but when daddy finds out, he proves to
be a very versatile torturer hinself - little wonder, he was an Israeli
soldier in Lebanon when he was younger. Yoram knows ways to torture Dror
Gidi hasn't even dreamed of, and then Dror confesses where he has hidden
the head of Gidi's daughter, and while Gidi rushes to dig up the head,
Miki manages to free himself and slip through the fingers of Yoram. And
even though he has promised Dror to free him as well if only he makes a
bogus confession (which is what this was), he doesn't make true this
promise and makes good his escape. Gidi in the meantime dashes back,
hell-bent on finishing Dror off ... Having put enough distance between
himself and Gidi's place, Miki makes a phonecall to learn his daughter has
been kidnapped, and there's only one logical suspect - Dror. Now Miki
dashes back, only to witness Gidi and Yoram slashing Dror's throat ... Even
if above synopsis might sound very gritty and grim, Big Bad Wolves
is actually a comedy - as dark and macabre as they get, as much of the
film's humour has a very brutal edge to it, the film never shies away from
violent outbursts to counterpoint its punchlines, and the story's very
mean streak can be felt throughout. But what makes Big Bad Wolves a
really good film is that it's excellently structured, and despite its many
twists and turns never loses its plot as such. And add to that some really
fleshed-out characters played by a great ensemble and a directorial effort
that never shies away from explicit gore but remains subtle throughout all
the same, and you've got yourself a pretty good movie!
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