Cold Copy came out to rent on Friday, Jan. 26. The film follows a journalism student, Mia, who is desperate to impress her professor by any means necessary.

We don’t get too many good journalism movies, so I was very interested to check this out. Unfortunately, it’s ultimately very one-toned and lacks the required suspense that could’ve made it interesting. Some of the characters felt too extreme in their traits, and didn’t have enough balance in their personalities. There needed to be more development shown as the film went along.

This is a story of jealousy, and how those feelings can truly change you as a person. It also dives into betrayal and how taking risks can both make you and break you. This should result in an engaging and captivating story, but it just doesn’t. The performances are all there to do that, but the script falls flat in the end.

Throughout Cold Copy, I couldn’t help but think of a much better film — Nightcrawler. I feel like this wanted to be a tamed-down version of Nightcrawler so bad, but it’s not. This ends up being a drama, rather than going down the darker route, but certain plotpoints follow the same trajectory. Rather than being able to enjoy those parts of the flick, it really just made me think of ways they were done a lot better in other films. This movie is also quite pretentious at times, trying to craft some grand meaning when it’s just surface level in the end.

Cold Copy does come to a satisfying conclusion, but the journey to get there left much to be desired. There are compelling moments sprinkled throughout, but not enough to make the story come together as a whole. I wouldn’t say that this is a bad movie. Rather, it just had the potential to be a lot better.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5