“The Whistleblower” is a large and ambitious film that has the heart of a blockbuster, but when put into play the Australian/Chinese endeavor gets the little things that makes a movie entertaining very wrong and it’s too noticeable to ignore.
Mark Ma (Jiayin Lei) is a public relations expert for a cutting edge energy company that is rolling out new technology that will take the organization to a new level. When that technology turns out to be the cause of earthquakes where ever it’s implemented, Ma and his mysterious former flame, Siliang must uncover the corruption and expose the truth.
The problem is that the film is almost mechanically flawed.
Dialog gets jumbled between languages, and the story is all over the place. The villains are easy to track with some of them being so cartoony they looked like they were plucked from an old generic video game. The problem is that there the component of this formula that jolts the film out of it’s directionless course. There are some parts of the movie that almost feel like they’re in the wrong place.
What does work is the special effects and there are some impressive visuals and sweeping shots given to us. Director Xiaolu Xue has a good eye and there is a sequence towards the end of the movie that is really well done.
Unfortunately, it’s a missed opportunity for everyone involved. “The Whistleblower” will probably be forgotten not long after you watch it and will likely be better executed somewhere down the line in a much stronger fashion.
“The Whistleblower”
GRADE: D
Rated: NR
Running time: 2 hours 5 minutes.
