"Colors of Evil: Red" (2024), a pleasant cinematic surprise

Nowadays, detective and police thrillers have the difficult task of surprising the public, there is so much content in this genre that it is almost impossible to create scenarios and situations that truly connect and awaken the interest of the audience. Thus, it is necessary that other minds, from different cultures and different latitudes, express their creative potential according to the experiences of that specific population. In each region, people have a different way of being, so undoubtedly crimes, murders and different mysteries have tints and colors that we are not used to see in our locality.

And well, the above mentioned is a function of what I saw in “Colors of Evil: Red”, a Polish film from the year 2024 produced by Netflix that was directed by Adrian Panek, a director evidently unknown to me since I don't usually watch content produced in Poland, in fact, this would be the first any film material from that country. Mentioning the protagonists wouldn't make much sense since they are generally totally unknown, but at least I can tell you that they did a very interesting job in their roles.

The film takes us to a beach in Poland, there was found the body of a beautiful girl who has the particular feature that her lips are missing, it seems that they were torn off with a knife or sharp object. What is known so far is that this girl worked in a night club. The police did not take long to relate this murder to one that happened some years ago since it was carried out under the same circumstances, the absence of lips on the victim was something difficult to forget. So the police do not hesitate to go after the previous murderer who had recently been released from prison.

So far, everything seems to have an early conclusion, the man was captured and even evidence related to the victim was found, but he flatly refused to recognize that he was the culprit and insisted that he was being incriminated on purpose and unjustly, despite this he was arrested and with much more reason after he tried to escape. Once at the police station, in a slight oversight of the police, the unfortunate man took the opportunity to throw himself through a window to take his own life, evidently he did not want to return to prison. This fact accelerated and facilitated the closing of the case.

However, a shrewd prosecutor does not seem to agree with everything and insists with his superior that the case should not be closed, but that request was denied on several occasions, and well, it is clear that it was easy to tie up all the ends to close the case as manslaughter and even more taking into account that the suspect took his own life after being captured. But the young prosecutor insists and even behind his boss's back and without authorization, he decides to investigate on his own. Thus, after talking to the mother of the murdered girl, he begins to put together a puzzle that seems to lead him little by little to a very complex and dangerous reality that he himself did not imagine.

With what you have read so far you may say that this is more of the same, mysterious murders, loose ends, criminals with power, shrewd cops, corrupt bosses, etc, and yes, you are right if you think so, that is actually what you see in the film, but what I want to highlight is the subtle way in which they take us to the conclusion of the case. I think the different way of thinking of those who wrote this film allowed an apparent cliché to feel fresh. The ending reveals a killer who frankly was far from a suspect and they did that quite well, they managed to throw me off in a very clever way and that's why I think this movie is a pleasant surprise.

I had no expectations when I saw this film, no references, no one recommended it to me and no one mentioned it, but I'm glad I stumbled across this Polish made content, I think being produced in an exotic country from a cinematic point of view helped the film feel different, interesting and intriguing. My rating for “Colors of Evil: Red” is 7.5/10. It was a pleasure to share this experience with you, a big hug to all the cinephiles in this community!