A student killer is roaming Bologna, & the local police show
remarkably little talent in tracking him down, actually it almost seems as
if they would sabotage their own investigations, so headquarters sends
computer supported top investigator Grazia Nero (Lorenza Indovina) to head
the investigations, helped by 2 local cops, Matera (Dario D'Ambrosi) &
Sarrina (Marco Giallini) - who basically drive her around in town. Soon,
Grazia comes up with a few clues up until now carefully overlooked by the
local cops, like a link to an old case, where Alessio Crotti (Rolando
Ravello), a guy freshly escaped from his looney bin, killed his own
brother, even though the brother had hidden him from prosecution. After
the murder, Crotti disappeared without a trace. Quite obviously, it also
turns out, Crotti's m.o. is to kill his victims, then take on their
personalities for a while. That doesn't make him easier to trace ... And
Grazia finds a witness, Simone (Claudio Santamaria), a computer wizard who
just happens to be blind. Soon Grazia comes up with one of these clever
movie-detective ideas ... to take Simone to a public party & use him
as bait for Crotti ... the plan of course works & works not, Crotti is
really at the party 6 makes himself known to Simone, but neither Grazia
nor her partners know what Crotti looks like, so all they come up with is
almost arresting the wrong man ... ... & this is the time when
Grazia's superior, Vittorio (Andrea Di Stefano) shows up, being quite mad
at Grazia for messing up the investigations that should have been PR for a
new computer system supporting investigations nationwide. And Vittorio
announces from here on he will take over ... Meanwhile though Crotti -
for some unknown reason - has figured he has to kill Simone & take
over his personality, & he has already killed Simone's mother
(Benedetta Buccellato) before Grazia can move Simone to safety - & for
some reason/no reason at all have sex with him, just like that. But by
now it has turned out that Vittorio has an agenda all of his own (even
though it does not become quite clear what that agenda is), which involves
driving Crotti around (?) ... but Crotti isn't one to be grateful & he
soon kills Vittorio, thenboes after Simone ... but before killing Simone,
he cuts out his own eyes (which is essential in taking over the blind
man's personality), so Grazia doesn't have any troubles arresting him
(though that is not shown). In the end, Crotti is back in the loonie bin
& Grazia & Simone have become a couple ... At first, Almost
Blue looks like an intelligent & well-crafted serialkiller
whodunnit ... but halfway through it loses itself in its own cleverness
& becomes a confused & confusing mess. All of a sudden, many
narrative threads are dropped (e.g. why did Crotti have a predilection for
sstudents & why did he drop this predilection just like that, what
secret agenda other than promoting his computer system did Vittorio have,
why did everybody at one point totally lose interest in the computer's
possibilities, why is Grazia suddenly fucking Simone, why did Crotti cut
his eyes out to assume Simone's personality before he killed Simone, ...),
& with the story going nowhere in particular, tension & suspense
fail to build up, which is not at all helped by the decidedly
underwhelming finale - even more so as the finale just is not played out,
the arrest as such is never shown. At the end of the day, rather
disappointing.
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