The Pale Blue Eye (2022) review

Notable gumshoe Landor (Christian Bale), who's got a problem with the drink (he's a widower and his daughter Mattie went "missing"), is asked by the staff at the West Point Military Academy to look into the suspicious "suicide" of a student (who had his heart cut out) and gets some unexpected assistance from frequently mocked cadet Edgar Allan Poe (Harry Melling).  It's based on the historical fiction novel by Louis Bayard and it's supposed to show where the great American poet got several of his macabre ideas from (and yes, there is a raven!), but it's completely inept at being a detective story and becomes more preposterous as it proceeds ... all the way up to an inane conclusion that only someone with severe cerebral trauma could have put together (or predicted in advance).  The mostly British cast does a little to help - Melling's exceptional and Bale is among the best actors in the world - but even them and those pretty snow-covered Pennsylvanian trees (not to mention a surprise cameo by Senator John Fetterman and his wife) make much of a difference.