In Soulcatcher (Netflix), directed by Daniel Markowicz (Bartkowiak), an ex-Polish special forces badass becomes personally invested in thwarting the plot to use an experimental energy weapon for nefarious purposes. Originally designed to cure cancer somehow, with a few tweaks it’s become a machine that transforms human beings into murderous zombie-type freaks. Now, it’s up to Kiel (Piotr Witkowski), code name “Fang,” and his team of former military pals to stop the soulcatcher from falling into the wrong hands. But as is typical in films like this, there’s almost nobody they can trust in the course of trying to make that happen.
SOULCATCHER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: When private military contractors Kiel (Witkowski) and his brother Piotr (Michal Burdan) assemble their men for a routine extraction from a remote corner of Poland, the operation quickly becomes chaotic when they’re attacked by random civilians frothing at the mouth. Kiel manages to locate their target, Eliza Mazur (Michalina Olszanska), but the same frothy fate soon befalls Piotr, and he turns on Kiel in a blind rage. Forced to kill his own brother, Kiel evacuates Eliza and Harbir (Vanish Luthra), the unit’s only other surviving member, with the help of pilot pal Krzysztof (Sebastian Stankiewicz). The mayhem they witnessed turns out to be the work of “soulcatcher,” experimental technology developed by Eliza’s scientist father Witold Mazur (Jacek Poniedzialek). The tube-like device was meant to cure cancer, though how that would work is never explained. And instead, the energy beam it fires makes whoever it hits instantly turn into a murderer.
With the soulcatcher and Professor Mazur in the clutches of a rogue general named Yousif (Mariusz Bonaszewski), who plans to sell the tech on the international black market, high level Polish government official Jan Zareba (Jacek Koman) tasks Kiel with recovering it by any means necessary. This op will be off the books of course, strictly hush hush, so Kiel assembles a mercenary team from his best ex-military buddies. In addition to Harbir and Krzysztof, there’s Storm (Aleksandra Adamska) and Bull (Mateusz Mlodzianowski), and Eliza also joins them in the hope of rescuing her father.
The group locates the decommissioned factory headquarters of Yousif, and with Storm on overwatch and Krzysztof transmitting drone footage back to Zareba, Kiel and Harbir infiltrate the lair without much trouble. There’s a deal going down between Yousif and an African warlord, but when a test of soulcatcher’s capabilities on captured human subjects goes haywire, all hell breaks loose, and Kiel again incurs collateral damage to those closest to him. After a running gun battle and more heroics from his team, Kiel finally finds his way to safety with the soulcatcher device in tow. But anything as mysterious and deadly as this device was never going to revert to its unspecified cancer-blasting, people-helping mandate, and Kiel soon finds himself in a race against time to single handedly stop the powerful forces who would wield its destruction for their own gain.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Soulcatcher director Daniel Markowicz and lead actor Piotr Witkowski also teamed up for Lesson Plan, where a former cop confronts the vicious gang who killed his BFF. And Sebastian Stankiewicz, who makes an immediate impression in Soulcatcher as the talky pilot Krzysztof, was also fantastic in Markowicz’s 2021 film Bartkowiak as a washed-up boxing coach who assists the hero with putting a bunch of thugs in their place.
Performance Worth Watching: Stankiewicz is a welcome and loud presence in Soulcatcher, but it’s the more subtle performances of Aleksandra Adamska and Vanish Luthra, as the sniper Storm and sure handed Harbir, that really lend chemistry to Kiel’s small team of mercs.
Memorable Dialogue: “Jarek. I really need you to say something. I asked the others, but you know how it is. Most of them won’t cooperate with me. If I’m to launch my own brand, I need to be sure it’s top shelf.” It’s one of its best and unfortunately underutilized bits that Soulcatcher never fully explores how Bull (Mlodzianowski) speaks to the pack of dogs on his compound like they’re his human compatriots.
Sex and Skin: Nothing here beyond a vague love story that emerges between Kiel and Eliza.
Our Take: If only we could just keep assembling the team forever. Once Soulcatcher has introduced the destructive, crazy-making power of its mysterious superweapon and set Kiel on a course to avenge his fallen brother, it finds an immediate spark of life in the disparate personalities he taps to join him on his unsanctioned mission. Even without a whole lot of exposition and backstory, we can understand the bond forged in blood between these individuals, and it’s enjoyable to ride along with them as they hatch their plan and get set to implement it. Which unfortunately is just about where formula entirely overtakes Soulcatcher, to the point that its midsection becomes a plod of predictable showdowns, close scrapes, bad guy speechmaking and glaring VFX explosions that really take us out of the moment. There is undeniable chemistry between Kiel and his team. But that breaks down too as they revert to their separate roles in the big soulcatcher heist, and once the device is inevitably switched on to create more murderous disorder, it’s too little too late. The fact that it transforms people into a zombie-adjacent horde ultimately doesn’t mean much, because Soulcatcher instead focuses on the mundane power-grabbing machinations of those who would possess it.
Our Call: STREAM IT for some cool team assembly scenes, but skip it for the soulcatcher device itself, which never makes an impression beyond being the thing that must be grabbed if our hero is to stop all of the other, more run-of-the-mill stuff, which amounts to nothing more than your typical human greed.
Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges
