Damaged

Samuel L. Jackson and Vincent Cassel wallow and wander through this limp, confusing serial killer hunt set in Scotland.

A not-uncommon ruse in film distribution is featuring the biggest star in the trailer, poster and other promotional material while subtly avoiding the fact that they just have a supporting role. The most deceptive in memory was Eddie Murphy getting top billing in “Best Defense” despite it being a Dudley Moore movie in which he barely appeared.

“Damaged” isn’t anywhere near that egregious. But if you look at how it’s being promoted, you’d think it’s a serial killer hunt starring Samuel L. Jackson and French star Vincent Cassel. They play a pair of former partner cops from Chicago reuniting in Scotland to chase down a murderer with a similar M.O. to a guy they never caught.

Indeed, while looking for a photo to go with this review I couldn’t even find one with Gianni Capaldi, the Scottish actor who’s actually the main character. (He even co-wrote the script and co-produced.) So wave hello, Vincent & Sam!

I wouldn’t mind the runaround if the movie was engaging and effective, but it’s not. It’s a rather limp and confusing mashup of other serial killer movie tropes and tricks.

Tonally it’s all over the map, starting out as an almost elegiac tone poem of regret, then moving into tense psychologically thriller mode, and by the end it’s become a bang-bang/chase-chase affair with a pumping rock music score. Director Terry McDonough has a TV background, and can’t seem to decide if he wanted to make “Se7en” or a buddy-cop flick.

Jackson plays Dan Lawson, a broke-down old drunk of a detective barely going through the motions. When he’s called to Edinburgh to assist with a murder case similar to one he failed to close a few years back, Lawson jumps at the chance to redeem himself.

The killer’s methods are quite gruesome: he breaks in on young women in their homes and fillets them, arranging their body parts into the shape of a cross or possibly an ankh — though not all of them. The rest are disappeared.

Lawson keeps swigging from those little bottles of hooch you get in hotel rooms, of which there seems to be an endless supply. He will do this on the job, in front of the Scottish cops, even getting falling-down plastered at one point while chasing a suspect. And nobody even bothers to say anything.

Capaldi plays Glen Boyd, the local Detective Chief Inspector on the case. He and Lawson quickly form a bond over their losses — Lawson for his girlfriend, Sarah, who died awhile back and Boyd for his young son who passed a year ago. He and his wife, Marie (Laura Haddock), are barely hanging on to the frayed tatters of their relationship.

(They also live in a really extravagant modern architecture house in the country, which got me to wondering about pay scales for Scottish detectives.)

Lawson decides to call in his old partner played by Cassel, who is French but somehow lived and worked in Chicago, and is gifted with the totally real-sounding name of Walker Bravo. My guess is the filmmakers intended to hire two American stars but could only get one, so they settled for a French guy but didn’t bother to change the character’s name. Though Walker Bravo is too American a name for even an American.

Anyway, he quit the force and gave up drinking after he and Lawson failed to catch their killer — bravo, Walker! — and drops in as a consultant with Lawson and Boyd. He’s also still French enough for a little light flirting with Boyd’s wife.

After a few false leads, they hone in on a local skeevy guy named McGregor (John Hannah) as their prime suspect. He wears coveralls and goes to strip clubs and even has a rare gun license in Scotland, so obviously he’s all bad. Hannah gives the guy a nice, hissable attitude.

Things go on from there, with lots of little clues and details we think will be important. They focus on the jewelry of the victims as a possible lead, and they also run into a Satanic-adjacent cult that McGregor used to belong to. It’s a bunch of bearded Scottish guys who dress in black and hang out in an old monastery waiting for enlightenment… or possibly a record deal.

The screenplay by Capaldi, Koji Steven Sakai and Paul Aniello is a real potpourri of bits ‘n’ pieces you’ve seen in other, better serial killer movies. More victims will turn up while the cops are investigating the first one, and the suggestion of a copycat killer is brought up. The boss cop (Kate Dickie) will tell Boyd he’s letting himself get too personally involved in the case, but won’t actually do anything about it.

Jackson plays it very loose as Lawson, almost to the point of phoning it in. Capaldi as the main guy is kind of a morose drip, and Cassel acts as the mysterious third wheel whose motives are constantly in question.

“Damaged” has the feel of a knockoff — like a purse or watch meant to stand in for something fancier but even an untrained eye can see it’s made from cheap materials slap-dashed together.