The Pale Blue Eye: A Tell-tale heartful story involving a detective Christian Bale.

Edgar Allan Poe and Franz Kafka haven been major influences in my life. Their poems, stories. novels have been a great thrill to me.  Whenever something shows up related to either of them, I am highly tempted to check on it. The Pale Blue Eye is a movie adaptation of a book which involves two characters: Augustus Landor (Christian Bale) and the cadet turned poet Edgar Allan Poe (Harry Melling) investigating a gruesome murder which occurs in the American Military Academy during 1830s. The movie overall has a different taste to usual detective stories in this genre but still lacks a powerful ending.

Scott Cooper's vision to keep the movie in a gloomy phase, using typical gothic horror related imageries, for example showing the Raven at times, and the ghastly murders are typical inspirations one takes from Poe's vision. The story plot reminds me a lot of Tell-Tale Heart mixed with anecdotes of Raven here and there . I am not aware of the actual plot of the book but despite a gritty beginning which manages to keeps it pace and twists you around Witchcraft and Black Magic, the twists and the ending seem to be shown less impactful. Although it is give a good conclusion, the motive and recircling around the typical theme "No one is totally evil or totally good" can get pretty boring considering the detective movies one has seen. 

Christian Bale's take is flawless and seems awfully a less challenging role to him unlike the other characters he plays. He is not that kind of a  passionate detective who is jumping and realizing clues, he just sits and thinks on his own and let the pieces of Chess do its own job. Harry Melling's uncanny resemblance to Poe is haunting at times and he does pull a fantastic job of an American Cadet who is filled with ideas on death, misery and love. Toby Jones and Gillian Anderson do pull up to their roles as they were meant to be. 

The score of this movie is very dull and bleak and I presume it is done in a intentional way. But on some scenes, it may have escalated the emotions if there were more of music. 

Overall. the Pale Blue Eye is a good watch and can be a good view for passing an evening time. 

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