The River Murders Movie Review

The River Murders is a 2011 thriller directed by Rich Cowan and starring Ray Liotta, Christian Slater and Ving Rhames.

A woman's body is found by the river and a cop is called in because he knows the woman who has been murdered. His name is Jack Verdon(Liotta) and he is considered a suspect in the killing due to his relationship with the dead woman. He is put on administrative leave and told to stay away from the case. He snoops around anyway and turns up at the crime scene. His mother dies in an accident and he is upset. A special agent called Agent Vukovich(Slater) is called in to investigate the case and he is suspicious of Jack. The two don't hit it off. The cops think that Jack is not the killer, but the FBI don't share their faith in him. Vukovich is not sure that Jack is innocent.

Meanwhile, we see the killer, who is dressed as a priest, show up at another ex girlfriend of Jack's and kill her. When she is found, Vukovich talks to Jack. He won't allow Jack to come back to the force yet. The cops try and come up with a profile of the killer.Vukovich asks Jack if anyone else knows about his sexual history. Jack works with a partner, Jenny and he wonders if she will be a suspect because he slept with her . Jack makes a list of the women that he has been with and he tells his current girlfriend to go away and be safe as he thinks that the killer will target her too.

Jenny meets the killer and he chats to her. He offers her a lift home. They get on and he calls to the police station to see her. She takes him home with her and he kills her. Jack finds out that his first girlfriend was pregnant and that her son is the one who is the killer. He is also Jack's son and this makes it all a bit weird. So, the gist of the story is that the son was trying to punish Jack for not wanting him etc and he was trying to get revenge etc etc etc. It ends well anyway. I won't bore you with the details...

This movie was okay. I like the cast. Liotta is not bad in this. He is always pretty dependable and even though the movie is not great, he is good. Slater is fine. He does his job but the film is standard serial killer fare with little in the way of surprises or scares, I think. It is not the finest hour for Liotta and Slater here and they must have needed a payday to consider this movie. It isn't crap, but it's not great either. It is mediocre, at best. So, if you like the cast, you might want to try this one, but don't expect too much or you will be disappointed, as I was. I will give this a 4/10.