Reflections

This ambitious project cost a lot of Spanish dollars, and egos I imagine. Spanish cinema is alive and bursting with talent. Spain keeps gracing the world with talented actors and directors. That makes it even more difficult to understand why anybody decided to waste his money and good name on this movie.

It's the story of an experienced interpol inspector on the hunt for a serial killer, on the loose in the northwestern part of the Mediterranean.

It's clear that this was intended as a European take on one of the Fetish themes of American cinema, the serial killer. The centerpiece of the plot is actually a fresh take on the theme and in itself justifies to make the movie. Unfortunately, the execution fails in all domains.

Ambition ruled over skill, so many parts of the movie are clumsily executed. The first big miss is hiring Timothy Hutton. Hutton is unmotivated and frankly comes across as a bit of a prick. And I'm not referring to his role.

The other roles are better cast, although generally the movie could have used some reliable values in some of the smaller roles, notably Hutton's colleagues.

Besides the bad acting, the plump direction, poor attention to detail and the simplistic plot finish the movie off. It's a pity because some of the other main characters are played by excellent actors and with a bit more juice in some key parts this could actually have been a good thriller.

Now it's just a reheated leftover of your run-of-the-mill American thriller.

The movie is easy to watch just for the scenery and individual performances - Timothy Hutton, Miquel Angel Silvestre, Tania Sarrias - but the screenplay does not take advantage of any of the characters' depth. Some twists and interesting new takes on forensics and genetics, but a little too much straight-line progression. The international cast is strong and should have been given more room to interact and participate. For a serial killer movie, some graphic violence is expected but the few moments of it in this movie seem to stand alone and not help the whole. More time with characters and less simply talking over static crime scenes would have helped. Overall, worth watching once. Cheers!

A good serial killer movie with breathless Spanish locations and very gorgeous Spanish women. It is always good to see Timothy Hutton acting. Once he was one of the most gifted actors of his generation. He made some bad choices in his career. But his presence in the screen is positive as usual. The movie is very interesting both because of the plot and the characters. The subject of genetic generation of people is very present and also scary. The serial killer movies usually are very repetitive. This one has several novelties. In my opinion the great problem here is the screenplay that is very obvious in its solutions. If you like a thriller, you can see it.

The film that brought Timothy Hutton to my attention was The Dark Half. It was his skill at playing both writer and psychological killer which kept my attention. It's because of this performance that I watched this and his performance here, as the detective chasing a serial killer, pretty much carries the film.

This turns out to be a similar premise to the Stephen King story in the fact that there are twins; one is a man struggling to cope with his life and his brother, a psychotic serial killer. Unfortunately, Hutton is not playing that role. Miguel Angel Silvestre plays the brothers Marco and Roberto. This is not a spoiler as this isn't a major plot issue, and is revealed in the first section of the movie. Writers Darby Parker and Jay Beattie should have used this to at least create a little mystery, tension, and suspense, which would have made the film much better. Though the film really suffers from Silvestre's under-acting and woodenness. Each time he spoke all I could see was Jean-Claude Van Damme as he sounds exactly like him. Even JCVD would've added a bit more panache and power; also the fight scene's would have looked more realistic.

This is a "Columbo" style story. You're told who the killer is early on and then the story centres on the detective's chase and apprehension of the criminal. I much prefer the "Miss Marple" whodunnit murder mystery as it has the ability to bring the viewer into the story more.

Another issue with the film is the number of secondary cast members there are. This is detrimental to the film as it draws the story and the viewer away from the heart and vitality of the story. There's one scene that should have been critical to Timothy Hutton's character, Tom as he comes face to face with the death of his love. However, due to the story being stuffed to overflowing with superfluous scenes and characters we never get the time to relate fully to this pair's relationship so we don't feel Tom's loss and anger at that scene.

That said, the rest of the cast are pretty good in their portrayals of their characters. Director Bryan Goeres keeps the tempo of the film to an average pace. Once again, I think he could have infused a little suspense and tension by fluctuating the pace accordingly. If it wasn't for Hutton and the hope for a twist in the ending, as my imagination had conjured up a few, I would've hit the off button.

Then, when the twist comes, it's the obvious one. Boy did I feel let down, not just because the twist was the most obvious but because the story which led to it could have been improved by better showing the progression to the twist.

If you like Timothy Hutton or "Columbo" style movies then you may like this but don't expect too much from it. Otherwise, I would say, stay away.

Tim Hutton was wooden in his acting and seemed to be not very interested in putting life into this tale. Some of the supporting actors/actresses did a good job, but overall I found it all a waste of time. There were no redeeming features by the end, for me. A thriller it most certainly was not.