Giallo

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Year:	2009
Country of origin:	USA / UK / Spain / Italy
Director:	Dario Argento
Genre:	Giallo rehash
Starring:	Adrien Brody, Emmanuelle Seigner, Elsa Pataky, Robert Miano
Rating:	3/5
IMDB link:	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1107816/
Tagline:	No tagline
Favourite line:	None worth mentioning

Dario Argento on very familiar ground here.
For those not in the know, here's how it is: Giallo is Italian for yellow. It is also the term used to describe a very specific type of cinema. Giallo movies have a few common ingredients:
A mysterious killer, usually sporting black leather gloves and with a penchant for some close quarters knife butchery.
A police investigation.
Set-piece style slayings, usually accompanied by music from either The Goblins, Tangerine Dream or, occasionally, a spot of NWOBHM (prime era Motorhead or Iron Maiden).
One of the finest exponents of the art is, of course, Dario Argento, who stepped from the world of film criticism to start making the blasted things for himself, allegedly dismayed at the paucity of genuine quality. Interestingly, he also has a close association with Sergio Leone, having worked in part on some Spaghetti Westerns.
With undisputed Giallo classics like Opera, Tenebre, Suspiria and Phenomena under his belt, this should surely be like slipping on a tight, black, leather glove just before plunging a knife into someone's throat.
Right?

The plot:
Adrien Brody wanders around Torino sporting a truly dreadful mullet, nostrils flaring, looking vaguely bewildered by his surroundings. See, a woman has been murdered, and her sister has been sent to him looking for assistance.
As it happens, he does know a thing or two, despite his attempts at gormlessness, and soon they are on the trail of a sick and sadistic killer known only as Yellow.
Yellow. Get it? The film is called Giallo.
And that's yellow in Italian.
And the genre is also known as Giallo.
Aren't they ever so bloody clever?

It's ok, folks.
I can't say more than that.
Brody is frankly ludicrous in the lead role, which is unusual. He's an Oscar nominee, for God's sake, so he's got some chops but, here, he just seems out of his depth. Genuinely, like he doesn't have a bloody clue what's going on.
Argento occasionally gives us a taste of his directorial flair but, for the most part, the atmosphere here relies far too heavily on the washed out, green and brown style grunginess of the more recent slew of torture porn offerings, from the likes of Eli Roth and Danny Bousman.
For Argento completists this is a must watch, of course, but newbie's, stay away from it like the proverbial alien anal probe.