The Pale Blue Eye isn’t exactly a new movie for Netflix but it’s only been out for a year, I think. I forgot how I heard of this one, but I did put it on my playlist and just recently finished it.

Christian Bale plays the main character, who is Augustus Landor. He’s a retired but brilliant police detective in an early 19th century America.

The military academy, West Point is under a crisis as one of its cadets had apparently committed suicide by hanging. But the perplexing thing about the incident was the fact that somebody tore out his heart after he was found. So they ask Augustus Landor to find the culprit before bureaucrats in Washington DC cut their funding and shut the school down.

Augustus Landor’s biggest ally in the case is a young Cadet named Edgar Allan Poe, who is more of a poet (surprise!) than a potential military hero of the future.

I will say that I do enjoy murder mysteries and involving a young Edgar Allan Poe (who happened to be an actual cadet at West Point back in the day was pretty clever) though it is based on the book of the same name.

Harry Melling really did nail his role as Edgar Allan Poe. I didn’t realize it at first, but the actor portrayed Dudley Dursley, who was Harry Potter’s awful cousin. That is pretty good acting range in my opinion.

As for The Pale Blue Eye, I did enjoy the film but it’s a bit predictable, which is strange for murder mysteries. But yes, there is a big twist at the end, but instead of being a brilliant curve of a story that changes your viewpoint; it kind of just bastardizes the whole plot of the film. With a better plot, this could have been a potential Oscar winner for Netflix, but it was good, but just not good enough.