Suspect Zero (2004)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

How sad is this?

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

"Suspect Zero" was based on a famous screenplay by Zak Penn. Penn's story revolved around the idea of a breed of serial killers who, because they are super intelligent, are able to swim under the radar and kill for indefinite periods of time without being caught. Penn mirrored such serial killers to an allegory about 50 foot sharks, mythical creatures which marine biologists have no proof exist, but which hypothetically could. "For a 50-foot shark, the ocean would be a never-ending buffet table," one character says. "He could feed off whales, octopus; he'd never have any need to surface or come to shore. If there was a 50-foot shark, we wouldn't know about it. We'd never see them." Penn's script then watched as an FBI agent teams up with an older, maverick agent who has spent his life tracking "suspect zero", a creature he believes to be a super serial killer.Penn's script was hot property in Hollywood during the late 1990s. It jumped from studio to studio, changed hands a number of times, being re-written and re-written every step of the way. It eventually landed in the lap of director E. Elias Merhinge, who forced more rewrites, threw in a supernatural "remote viewing" subplot, re-imagined numerous characters and sucked Penn's tale of all life. The result became a terrible movie which bore little resemblance to Penn's script and which, like the 50-foot shark, quickly sunk under the radar.Amongst the cast, only actor Aaron Eckhart escapes with dignity. The film co-stars Ben Kingsley in yet another absurd, ridiculous role.5/10 – Worth no viewings.

Remove Viewing is a real life trained/learned discipline that was developed by Ingo Swann at Stanford Research Institute and adapted by the Government and utilized for twenty years in a Top Secret Psi-Ops unit. The results were astonishing and although much skepticism later if one is to delve deep into the science and its repeatable results the remarkable findings are undeniable.That said, incorporating this into a fictional serial-killer film had intriguing potential that was totally wasted and completely confusing. Remove Viewing itself is never satisfyingly explained or used for anything but a back-story to facilitate the breakdown of the RV practitioner and an excuse for his psychosis.In addition the film is all over the push-pin map and is so murky and kinetic that the whole affair becomes frustrating and futile. There are some tense moments and the movie is forever begging one to become involved but knocks the viewer upside the head with frantic editing and surreal images that are migraine inducing. A bottle of aspirin might help you to endure this pretentious mess, but the pain is ultimately too much to bare even for fans of the genre.

I don't know whether to praise or to curse The Silence of the Lambs (1991) for allowing a generation of brothers, sisters, clones and likes, to appear after it ?!! Nevertheless, in relation with this movie, I won't curse it.. much ! The main merit here is the script. Its smart plot makes the movie surpass. The idea of serial killer of serial killers is unique and not shown before in the The Silence of the Lambs' breed (It seems written by people saw many serial killers movies !). The way it was written, and revealed at the end, blew my mind no doubt.Then, the convergence of the hunter and the hunted wasn't less smart. They both are tormented creatures. They both hunt justice, while being hunted by imperfect law. And they are both killers. So when the protagonist hunts down the antagonist, he finds out that he was hunting down his evil side all along, which he wants to be and he wants to end as well (hence migraine was a side effect for that unstoppable inner conflict). Though, it wasn't all smart. This movie had many suspect zeros I suppose !First of all the writing didn't tell us much about the lead. Only info that could be enough for a movie with no time to think. To make the matter unredeemable, Aaron Eckhart (or Achehart !), played the character. So it's not something is burning; it's already a conflagration ! As a charisma he has so boring face. And as a talent, he wasn't given much to do except holding his head in confusion while reviewing papers and photos. To add more fuel the director had a sort of Aaron Eckhart's face's fetish, with endless close ups; now here's hell for you !With obviously poor budget, director E. Elias Merhige did nothing but poor job. True some moments, let's say a few ones, were very good; such as the appearance of the partner at the very end on the top of a balanced knoll, unlike the other 2 characters. But his work wasn't, as a whole, as good as the script.I just felt that Ben Kingsley was miscast; doing efforts for a role that doesn't originally fit him. I hated his first scene a lot; this is not the right way to be scary or angry. Overall, and forgive me Ben, what a waste of talent !It has one of the most reticent, rather cheeseparing, soundtracks in movie history. It made the movie empty, or idiotically different; since the image didn't enthuse to contemplate. While not wanting to be an action, the movie couldn't be surprising enough at its second act. Another reason, with Eckhart's face, that director, and that soundtrack, for being boring !Some points looked unrealistic and silly. For instance, how Kingsley got into the salesman's car at the start? You can watch this scene for 1000 times without ever knowing the secret. My best guess; Kingsley vibrated into air, then got rematerialized into the car ! Then, how Kingsley got to sneak into the FBI's building, many times, to leave many messages for the lead, without anyone seeing him? OK, he can vibrate and rematerialize the letters along with himself too; AMAZING !So, if I was this movie's writer, I won't be so satisfied with the ultimate product. Yes, it is unpredictable, somehow original, but endemically poor. While having, for a rare time, no patterns for its serial killer, it applied the pattern of a movie with good script, and not that good everything !

This film was absolutely a wonderful treat to watch. Ben Kingsley was definitely at the top of this game. Ben plays this quasi serial killer named Benjamin O'Ryan. We are perfectly forced to remain within the constraints of the way this story is told that makes it so difficult to stop watching. We soon find ourselves opening up to the other characters in this film such a our FBI investigator Thomas Mackelway (Aaron Eckhart). Thomas seems to have his own little hidden secret in which were are soon exposed to. What's so creepy about this film is this Benjamin's uncanny gift of remote viewing, which is a highly unlikely situation with most people. The federal government was to have supposedly started this remote viewing project from a spin-off of a Russian program considered to do the same things.During the development of the story we soon are introduced to another investigator named Fran Kulog (Carrie-Anne Moss) who had supposedly earlier been involved with Thomas Mackelway in a relationship. However, we soon find out that this relationship had somehow gone sour because Thomas was tortured by his incessant desire to track down one of the scummiest serial killers out there. We discover that Thomas actually had gone across the border into Mexico without prior approval to do so and kidnapped this rapist Raymond Starkey (Keith Campbell). Thomas was suspended for doing this and was told to get some psychological help. At every step of the way, Benjamin taunts Thomas by purposefully leaving clues designated to perpetuate his game-like killing of these people. Thomas Mackelway arrives in Albuquerque, and his first case is the murder of a traveling salesman, Harold Speck (Kevin Chamberlin), who had a zero mark on his body. The FBI was called to the scene since the body was found in a car located just across the state line. Thomas grows increasingly estranged by the case & his insanity grows all encompassing as he tries to find the link between the victims that will lead him to their killer.The film's intensity is only too well topped off by explicit details of newspaper clippings and hundreds of well-composed charcoal drawings, many of which help drive the plot along. There is a dark, demonic imagery involved with this film which I think should be present since we are dealing with a gruesome subject. We find both men torturing themselves within their own minds, thusly, we find caught up in a reverie of overlapping and sometimes mis-shapen images that are supposedly mimicking blurring thoughts of a remote or E.S.P. type origin.The visual style reminded me of "Seven" (1995) which seemed to be perfectly captured by Director David Fincher. However no director has yet come as close to match Fincher's unique visual composition and cinematography. All of the shots in Seven are carefully composed and never falter in its editing & pace.We also have a very strong performance from Harry Lennix who played Rich Carlton, Thomas Mackelway's superior who always seems to have some kind of sarcastic comment to throw out to get Thomas's head out of the clouds.Ultimately in the end, the film achieves great power during the confrontation between Thomas, Benjamin, and Fran. The showdown with undiscovered serial finally comes to a head. We finally discover how disturbed Benjamin really is when he begs Thomas to go ahead and kill him just as he has seen in his visions since he has and will continue to be tortured by these paranormal occurrences.