The Postcard Killings Updates: Directed by Danis Tanović, the thriller revolves around Jacob Kanon, an NYPD agent, played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan who is on the search for a killer, who mercilessly murdered his daughter and her husband. The movie offers an insight into the psyche of a mortal and explores morality.
Plot Summary Of The Postcard Killings:
Based on the novel by James Patterson and Liza Marklund ‘The Postcard Killers’, this cinematic adaptation has a gruesome start with the screen opening to the blood drained and dismembered bodies of the newlywed couple on a honeymoon to depict an artwork and they happen to be Kanon’s daughter and her husband.
Kanon and the police officers later discover that it is the work of a pair of serial killers who happen to be traveling around Europe killing happy couples.
Before arriving in each city, they send a postcard to a local journalist giving a hint of the artwork they will next depict with the dead bodies. Along with Kanon, the movie also shows the travel of a young couple across Europe called Sylvia(Naomi Battrick) and Mac Rodalph(Ruairi O’Connor).
They cross paths with an eerie stranger Peiter(Dylan Devonald Smith) who later introduces them to his wife Nienke (Sallie Harmsen).
The Real Perpetrators
Through the first half of the film, we are fooled into thinking that Peter and Nienke are the killers, but it’s an interesting turn when they are murdered too. Only then, do we realize we were being given an insight into Sylvia and Mac’s thoughts, the real postcard killers?
A Broken Protagonist
It’s not really surprising that after the death of his beloved child and her husband, Kanon starts drowning his grief in alcohol. After his estranged wife Valerie (Famke Janssen) throws away the liquor bottles, he starts getting consumed in his sorrow and can be seen breaking at points and shouting at his co-workers.
Dessie Lombard (Cush Jumbo), a local newspaper writer helps him then and she is the one who receives the postcard before the serial killers land in Stockholm.
A Cruel Father
While Kanon is out chasing the killers, Valerie goes to meet the killers’ father in jail who was accused of embezzling money, put behind bars because of his own son. Simon Haysmith Sr. was the father of Simon Haysmith known as Mac now, and Marina Haysmith, now Valerie.
It seems that they were in an incestuous relationship and their father did everything, including the cruelty of beating them every day to put an end to that. This was later confirmed by the neighbor. Their father taught them all about art and their killings are a way of rebelling and demanding to understand.
Ending:
Lombard publishes an article on the killings and as planned, draws a response from the killers. They choose her as their last victim. They kidnap Lombard and are about to kill when Kanon shoots Simon.
He dies in Marina’s arms. It is later revealed that the killers were not blood-related but adopted. The film ends with a call from Marina to Naysmith. She is alive and most probably will go after him now.
