If you didn't see The Two Faces Of January (and judging by its tiny $4 million box office gross odds are you didn't), you really missed out. An adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith novel starring Viggo Mortensen, Kirsten Dunst and Oscar Issac, its release around the world has been scattered over the summer, but if you can catch it in cinemas, do; it's one of the year's most interesting movies. Highsmith's books tend to bring two things; vivid representations of distinct locations and morally skewed characters. While most adaptations can get the sweltering heat of Mediterranean Europe right, they tend to misunderstand the motivations of their anti-heroes, mistaking their off-kilter moral compass for all-out bad intentions. Refreshingly The Two Faces Of Janurary doesn't make this mistake, the despicable actions it presents as real as the arid white heat of Greece. In a typically Highsmith move, we're given two mysteriously motivated main characters, it taking a good time to figure out who the real unsavoury person is. In what feels like a homage to The Third Man, the finale features a three-way footchase through the streets of Istanbul, culminating in Mortensen's Chester being shot. Initially the scene appears to be mirroring Hitchcock's Strangers On A Train (another Highsmith adaptation), where a twisted murderer refuses to confess to his crimes in his final moments, implicating another man for his crimes. Instead the film swings a curveball, having the previously self-preserving Chester confess his crimes in one of the years most unexpected exchanges.
