Brooding noir 'Damaged' takes cop from Lake Shore Drive to lochs of Scotland

You have to dig the moment in the rough-edged and brooding modern-day noir “Damaged” when Samuel L. Jackson is at the scene of a crime and says:

“Beware false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing, for inwardly, they are ravenous wolves. Matthew, Chapter 7, Verse 15.”

It’s a great callback to Jackson’s iconic (albeit embellished and misstated) citation of Ezekiel 25:17 from “Pulp Fiction,” and while no one is ever going to confuse “Damaged” with Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 classic, the one thing these films have in common is a commanding performance from Sam Jackson. All these years later, Jackson can take ownership of a scene in the lowest of keys — or by launching into one of his trademark verbal explosions.

Directed in lean and fast-paced fashion by Terry McDonough (whose expansive TV credits including helming the “Better Call Saul” episode of “Breaking Bad”) and featuring sharp performances by a first-rate cast that also includes Gianni Capaldi, Vincent Cassel and Laura Haddock, “Damaged” has a kind of “Se7en in Scotland” vibe.

Jackson’s Dan Lawson is a longtime Chicago police detective who has been crawling inside of a flask for years — ever since he failed to solve a series of gruesome murders in which the victims’ limbs and heads were severed and rearranged to indicate some sort of demented religious messaging.

Now, some six years after the killings stopped, a very similar murder has occurred in Edinburgh, and the police there have asked for Dan’s help. With cinematographer Matthias Pötsch making great use of the suitably gloomy Scottish skies, Dan pairs up with Detective Chief Inspector Glen Boyd (Gianni Capaldi), who is having trouble at home with his wife Marie (Laura Haddock), as the couple is still in deep mourning over the loss of their toddler son a little over a year ago.

Damaged. The theme runs heavy throughout. Glen and Marie are damaged, as is the hard-drinking Dan. (We’ll leave it for the film to reveal the reason Dan is such a mess.)

Then there’s Dan’s former partner, one Walker Bravo (Vincent Cassel), whose experiences on the job were so traumatic he became an alcoholic, quit the force, sought treatment for his disease, moved to London and started writing crime novels. Now, though, Walker has agreed to assist Dan and Glen with their investigation into the case in Scotland.

With the body count escalating, a number of suspects emerge — and the one thing we know from hundreds of previous entries in this genre is the most obvious candidate is most likely NOT the killer. Or maybe this time around, it is? We shall see.

Even with the brisk running time of just over an hour and a half, “Damaged” takes a few detours that feel a bit like filler. A cult-like religious sect is introduced into the mix, and there’s some mumbo-jumbo exposition about Satanic Temple symbols that’s more confusing than edifying.

On the plus side, there’s a cool sequence involving a drone-aided police chase of a suspect, and one has to give credit to the filmmakers for hitting us with some pretty nasty twists along the way. The ride here is dark and uncompromising.