Movie review: ‘The Pale Blue Eye’ is an appealingly dark period mystery, but Scott Cooper’s adaptation largely frustrates

Scott Cooper is a competent filmmaker. He’s rarely an extraordinary one.

Generally, the writer-director makes movies with premises so strong as to lead to disappointment when they prove to be only mediocre.

However, there have been two exceptions: the excellent 2015 mob drama “Black Mass” and Cooper’s 2009 debut, “Crazy Heart,” lifted by an Academy Award-winning performance by Jeff Bridges.