'Solomon Kane': Netflix Lied to Me

Whilst I was perusing Netflix the other day, I came across this little flick. Written and directed by Michael J. Bassett, Solomon Kane is one of the most passable movies I have ever seen in my life. It is almost like eating a dollar store meatloaf. It is overall really bland and unpleasant, but it's got enough salt in it to give it at least a little bit of flavor. If you are wanting to go into this to find a hidden gem of 2009, you are going to be sorely disappointed.

Now, like I said in the title, Netflix lied to me. The description for this movie is, and I quote: "In this epic tale, a once-murderous sea captain is holed up in a monastery in retreat from the devil, whom the captain fears is coming for his soul." This is not exactly inaccurate. It is, however, maybe a whole five minutes of the movie. Based on this, I was expecting somewhat of a solo act, perhaps some kind of thriller. What I got was a mediocre action movie with some really solid acting and writing in some parts.

Our starring role, Solomon Kane, played by James Purefoy, is a leather covered edge boi, as it seemed everyone was in this era of filmmaking. The movie does a fairly decent job showing off his murderous nature in the opening scene, showing Solomon and his crew laying siege to an Arabian city, ruthlessly slaughtering everyone in their path. To be entirely honest, this opening scene is in my opinion the most well acted scene in the whole movie. Solomon is snarling and growling at his foes, laughing maniacally as he drags around a soldier impaled on the end of his sword. However, things only go downhill in terms of our main character's performance from here. Purefoy seems to spend the rest of the movie in a kind of haze, just sort of talking his lines at varying volumes.

In terms of villains, this movie is incredibly weak. The best villain in the movie is in the opening scene. The Devil's Reaper, voiced by Ian Whyte, looks absolutely amazing. He is not over the top; a simple nine foot tall hooded, sleekly armored figure, with a giant flaming sword. And he never shows up again for the rest of the movie. Ehhhhhhhh... Anyway, our two other villains—Malachi, played by Jason Flemyng, and Overlord, played by Samuel Roukin—both just kind of exist. Malachi literally does not show up until the last ten minutes of the movie, and when he does he looks like an Egyptian sorcerer got transported to 1982 and did a lot of cocaine and got some regretable tattoos. Flemyng plays the character exactly as you would expect; a lot of creepy smiles and run of the mill fantasy villain stuff. His performance was so forgettable that I can't even find a clip of him on youtube to refresh my memory. Overlord, on the other hand, suffers from the same problem as the Devil's Reaper. He looks pretty cool, but he is barely there. He wears a mask that essentially looks like someone took a flap of skin and cut eye holes. He shows up maybe twice to do some spooky black finger magic on some guys, and once to look kind of intimidating at Solomon, and he doesn't talk, so it would have been hard to play this character poorly. Plus his identity is a plot twist you see coming a mile away.

The overall plot of the film is not much better, revolving around Solomon trying to rescue Meredith, played by Rachel Hurd-Wood, the daughter of a family that took him in after he gave up his life of murder to "be a man of peace," which he gives up about 20 minutes later to brutally murder like a dozen dudes. The plot is simple enough to keep you going, and it never really matters too much. It does not require much thought, and if you forget, it does not really matter. The family that takes Solomon in are honestly the most likable characters in the entire film, especially the Father William Crowthorn, played by Pete Postlethwaite, who was just a down to earth family man trying to get by. The biggest problem of the plot was that it kept magically changing the nature of the main character. His tone is constantly shifting, and it is very jarring. In one scene, he literally goes from devoutly praying to God for guidance, to practically cussing Him out in about six and a half minutes, and the movie is constantly doing this.

Overall, Solomon Kane is just so meh. If you have to kill an hour and 45 minutes, I could think of plenty of worse things to watch. It's incredibly passable, with a few characters that are actually good, half decent action, somewhat decent effects, which I will add are mostly practical with a few exceptions. I would not seek this movie out by any means, but if its on at 3 AM, it will kill some time.