Diane Kruger is terrific in In the Fade but the rest of the movie quickly fades from memory. A crime drama where Kruger rages, grieves and snorts cocaine after her family is killed in a bombing, In the Fade is a perfectly decent little movie – it simply fails to take advantage of its fiery lead. Oh, and explain why audiences should care at all.
Writer/director Fatih Akin plods through a relatively uninteresting courtroom saga before, inexplicably, the clearly guilty criminals are found innocent and set free, which causes Kruger’s character to take things into her own hands.
The problem is that taking things into her own hands means doing very little, as she spends most of her time looking distressed and plotting things she may or may not do. The film may ultimately be an exploration of grief, but it looks and plays like a revenge thriller – only with very little revenge.
The third act is pretty ho-hum as Kruger advances toward a seemingly inevitable conclusion, and then she decides to do something else. Sometimes predictable is better than dull, and dull is how the In the Fade climax pans out.
Despite much of a hook, the movie operates at a steady clip, which offers at least some relief from its utter unnecessariness. In the Fade isn’t a bad movie, but really, is a good performance worth it?
Review by Erik Samdahl unless otherwise indicated.