A good villain is often on another level of thinking than the hero trying to take them down. They speak cryptically and are playing a game of mental chess when everyone else is still playing checkers. That could’ve very well been the case for Tahar Rahim as Ezekiel, who is set on averting his own death. It’s an understandable obsession, but one that is dropped on the audience in one of the most stilted and borderline hilarious info dumps ever put to film, made even worse given the character is barely seen saying the words at the time.
Ezekiel wakes from a nightmare about three mysterious girls pushing him out a window. When the woman he’s bedded asks what woke him up, he casually reveals it was three women who had a part in his death, which his one-night stand is totally unfazed by. What makes this conversation even more of a chore to process is half of it unfolds with Rahim’s lips barely moving, setting a standard for this villain’s automated dialogue replacement (ADR) that continues throughout the film.
This isn’t due to him being a lousy actor, by the way. Rahim is a two-time BAFTA nominee with great performances under his belt (see “A Prophet” for proof). Instead, he’s just another poorly used star who might as well be in a dubbed foreign movie and one of many parts that are totally out of sync in “Madame Web.”
