While it can be refreshing to see a mystery that isn't rushed and allows actors some breathing room, "Evidence of Blood" still takes too long to start putting all it's pieces together, and then rushes to finish things up. The climax is certainly gripping (though very contrived), but it still leaves some questions hanging in the air. Was the late Sheriff murdered? The film certainly hints at it more than once. And what was the real connection -if any - between the murdered woman and the man who was wrongly accused of her death? And the film drops the device of having Strathairn's character watch the video interview of a serial killer he's using as a book subject. That device doesn't illuminate the writer's character all that much, and it's existence only seems to matter for the killer's line "You never know who you really are" (or something like that), which figures at the film's denouement.
David Strathairn is an excellent actor with the uncanny ability to subtly make his characters seem more complex than they may be on paper (certainly the case here). Mary McDonnell does well enough, and both she and Strathairn are a good match (though I'll admit that Strathairn had more sexual chemistry with Julianne Moore in a brief scene in "A Map Of The World" than he does with McDonnell.
David Strathairn is an excellent actor with the uncanny ability to subtly make his characters seem more complex than they may be on paper (certainly the case here). Mary McDonnell does well enough, and both she and Strathairn are a good match (though I'll admit that Strathairn had more sexual chemistry with Julianne Moore in a brief scene in "A Map Of The World" than he does with McDonnell.