The Intextigator 3: The Line of the Four

‘The Intextigator 3: The Line of the Four’ is one of those films which thinks it’s a lot smarter than it actually is. It’s a film which ants to manipulate you into believing it’s a piece of high-quality, intelligent filmmaking, when in fact it is nothing more than a sub-par detective story, which offers nothing intellectually or morally stimulating.

The plot is one of tired tropes as an art gallery has their prized painting stolen in the dead of night, and with no clear evidence, Detective Leah Strade (Nicole Jacobs), a not-so-subtle nod to the famous Sherlock Holmes character is set on the case. But there’s a twist - as part of an experiment (which seems like illogical timing given the robbery is headline news), she is paired with the Toronto Police’s newest recruit, the AI technology Sherlock.

Anybody with a remotely cine-literate brain will immediately have their minds turned towards Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 classic film ‘Robocop’, however, where that provided a biting satire on the world of policing and the rising undercurrent of technology, ‘The Intextigator’ offers no comment, only vague hints at the dangers of being watched constantly by technology. In the end, however, even that results in nothing, as both humans and tech are placed at a stalemate as equally effective bodies of justice.

This poses the question - was it all worth it? The answer is not at all. Both ultimately come to the conclusion simultaneously, meaning that we end up having to jarringly receive the same information twice, with no satisfying end result. This is indicative of a poorly written script, with too many monologues, too much repetition, and an irritating number of cuts to the AI bot’s text, in which we are forced to read what we just heard. Even the dialogue is frustratingly bland, giving us nothing to distinguish between the four suspects whom are outlined by Detective Strade for no particular reason other than they work there. There’s no reason for Strade to suspect them, and whilst her hunch proves right, it doesn’t make any of it make more logical sense.

However, John Babu’s direction is sometimes engaging, and occasionally offers a creative spark to lift us out of the doldrums of the interrogation scenes, in which Nicole Jacobs does remarkably well to sustain a respectable performance in such a poorly written script. Neither of these things stop ‘The Intextigator’ from being a thoroughly boring film, where basically nothing happens.