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This variation of the story told in The Big Clock gets off to a rough start, with an early sex scene in a limo that's ridiculously cheesy, complete with the saxophone-infused title song, a leering driver, and a tepid attempt at eroticism. It didn't help that Sean Young has little charisma or chemistry with Kevin Costner. Costner brings an earnestness to his part, but it's in the mold of Gary Cooper, rather flat, and lacking the range necessary for the more dramatic scenes at the end. He gets some nice moments in out on a sailboat with Young, but there was also his character's silly antics pretending to eat bugs from the windshield while riding in their convertible, so he's a mixed bag here.

We're assured that Costner's character is honorable by seeing him risk his own life at sea to save another, and how he calls his new girlfriend from a strip club in Manila instead of ogling the topless dancers gyrating in the background. He finds himself caught up in a situation which demands unquestioning loyalty at the expense of what's right (hmm, how relevant) by the Secretary of Defense (Gene Hackman) and his devious underling (Will Patton). In their zeal to cover up a crime (being vague here on purpose), Costner finds himself involved in a manhunt meant to find himself, which creates a tension that steadily increases.

Hackman is fantastic as usual, particularly when his character gets nasty, but I thought Patton was too hammy and over-the-top. In a tangential moment it's also unnecessarily made clear that his character is gay, bringing to mind the "evil homosexual" stereotype which I shook my head over, though it was ironic given current events when his character threatened a person of color (Iman) with deportation. There are some fun 80's bits in the investigation like the archaic computers and the unrealistic image enhancement technology, but on the flipside the soundtrack was weak.

The film feels awfully tidy when it gets to its conclusion, but then tosses in a twist, one that's intriguing initially, but which doesn't make as much sense upon reflection. This isn't a bad film by any means, it's just uneven, so guard your expectations, or better yet, watch The Big Clock (1948) instead.

I'm sure this has been said before, but this feels like a copycat of better films about serial killers. I loved the strong and smart female characters (Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter), but mediocre writing made this feel like a thriller by numbers. Many aspects felt weak, including the ease with which a cartoonish killer operated, the idiotic guard who abandoned his post over a car alarm, the unnecessary and unpleasant cop named Nico, and the highly contrived and tangential way another cop died. The tone seemed disjoint and sometimes too frothy as well. Lastly, not a fan of the Police's song 'Murder by Numbers' and the awkward way it was used here. Ah well, at least it was set in beautiful San Francisco.

A hot mess of a film, one with some level of trashy appeal, but too schlocky to be erotic or a thriller. The acting is poor across the board which doesn't help, and there are times when it gets boorishly clownish. Put it this way, it's a film that thinks a cut to a raccoon looking on as the main character is getting beaten up is cute, or that it's funny that the first thing out of a lawyer's mouth after hearing about an allegation of rape by a teacher is to ask whether it's been made by a male or female. Bill Murray turning up here just amplified how off tonally this thing was. There is never a bit of restraint, from the over-the-top flirtation from both mother and daughter (stuff you might see in a softcore film), to both Denise Richards and Neve Campbell's characters alluding to being penetrated anally, and to a bevy of plot twists down the stretch that grew increasingly ridiculous. This just felt like a pale imitation of much better films in the genre.