My Policeman – Film Review

It’s always more than a little disheartening whenever a book-to-movie adaptation releases and ends up being less than stellar. Sadly, that’s exactly what Michael Grandage‘s adaptation of My Policeman is. He took one of the most acclaimed and emotionally powerful books of the past ten years and turned it into something extremely generic and boring.

When it comes to this film, I can tell that Grandage at least tried his best to adapt the source material but I think to him it seemed easier on paper as opposed to reality. To be fair, My Policeman is hard to adapt and although this film wasn’t particularly enjoyable for me, I do respect the filmmakers for making an attempt.

One of the many problems here has to do with the way the story is presented. Ron Nyswaner‘s script is more than a little jarring, as it often flip-flops between past and present without ever giving us, the viewer, a chance to breathe in one time period for too long. And just when we get comfortable, the film switches suddenly.

Another issue is, unfortunately, lead actor Harry Styles. He wasn’t too bad in this year’s otherwise abysmal Don’t Worry Darling, but in this movie, I can see why many people are saying he’s not actor material. It looked as if he were reading cue cards this entire movie and almost all of his lines are delivered so wooden and emotionless.

He’s obviously an incredibly talented singer and has millions of fans all around the world, but when it comes to the film industry… well, he should just stay out of it. A truly great performance here, however, would have to be that of David Dawson‘s, who portrays a young Patrick Hazelwood.

Sadly, most of the chemistry between the cast members here is quite flat as well, which is a shame since a lot was riding on the camaraderie between them all and it just wasn’t all there. This movie isn’t all awful though. There were some moments here and there where I found the direction from Grandage to be excellent and the third act is actually quite a bit of fun.

All in all, though, this was an extremely disappointing adaptation of an otherwise absolutely amazing book. Who knows? Maybe years down the road they’ll take another stab at this one because I definitely would like to see this extremely powerful story done justice.

My Policeman is a frustratingly bland adaptation of an otherwise amazing book that suffers from poor writing, weak direction, and a hugely miscast lead in Harry Styles.