Spinning Man

A good thriller is often referred to as a cat-and-mouse affair. Here there are literally multiple mice plaguing the home of a respectable Philosophy of Linguistic Professor, at precisely the same time as he is the mouse in the hunt for a female student's presumed murderer. Geddit? Don't worry: if you miss it the first time, you'll get it when it comes up again later, as it does again and again.

Pierce Brosnan plays (well) out of his usual range and assumes the puzzled gravitas of the cool-headed cop with a drinking past. Minnie Driver is ok as the Prof's doubting, suspicious wife, but she's not given much to do apart from doubt and be suspicious. Guy Pearce is de ent as aforementioned Prof, but his early arrogant posing gets a bit tedious as the story progresses. (His name, by the way, is Evan Birch, which in a movie that mixes its metaphors and symbols like a drunk in a cocktail lounge, must surely be meant to suggest both Evenness, if that's a word, and, well, that's he straight and upright as a birch.)

Alexandra Shipp, as the young female student the Prof is most recently entangled with, owns the screen at every appearance, and shows the kind of potential that makes everyone else look like they're simply passing the time while waiting for her undeniable star quality to be recognised.

Too much of the time, though, all this feels like something from 1988 rather than 2018 (the heavy-handed symbolism, the clichéd tortured genius who comes across to everyone around him as an arrogant monster, etc etc). As a fast ride through desire and guilt, fear and self-loathing, it has something going for it and might even have worked if it relied less on off-the-peg movie clichés and, instead, looked deeper into the central character's motivations.

The first half, at least, is more than watchable and quite engaging in its own way. The ending, as many other viewers have said here, is simply bad. Even/Evan awful. Between the two, there are intriguing glimpses of the better movie this might have been but isn't, not least because the young women in it all remain beautiful temptresses and not one is ever realised as a fully formed character in her own right.

That's a mistake. And a real pity. As every philosophy student knows, we are made, or revealed, in our interactions with others.

Mystery/thrillers can sometimes put themselves in a bind. They create a 'did he/didn't he' scenario and base their movie around it, but the problem with that is if the answer is one of the options (usually "he didn't") then you don't have a story worthy of a movie, and thus the answer is simple to work out. 'Spinning Man' finds itself in this predicament and takes a unique route to try and escape it. Did it work for me? Not really.

You leave the film with a little bit of a "what was the point?" mentality. The film being quite well made actually covers this up partially, but it's still there lurking at the back of your mind. The film is at its strongest when it is creating psychological parallels with the story that is going on. It's easy to tell the film was based off a book, because it is very well crafted in that sense. The acting from the main three - Guy Pearce, Pierce Brosnan and Minnie Driver - is also very strong and helps carry what could otherwise have been some very clunky dialogue in places.

The film shares a lot of similarities with 'Memento' (and no not just because Pearce is again in the lead role) yet it too often feels like an episode of 'CSI: Crime Scene Investigation'. The pacing is a little lazy in spots which creates this feeling. This is far from must-watch material, but there is still enough here to make for a perfectly passable film.

A college student Joyce Bonner (Odeya Rush) goes missing and police detective Malloy (Pierce Brosnan) keys in on Philosophy professor Evan Birch (Guy Pearce) who is known to have affairs with students.

This really needed more suspects, but we have only one and I couldn't make up my mind if he was guilty or not. He acted so innocent and uncaring that I thought it couldn't be him. Yet, maybe that is what they wanted me to think. Yet there was no one else. His wife Ellen (Minnie Driver) was coming to believe their 5-yrs ago in another town was closing in on her and she doesn't want to move again.

Detective Malloy tells Professor Evan that they both have something in common: they both seek the truth.

I liked Pierce Brosnan as the detective and kind of hope he will do more of this kind of character in other movies. Hey, we need a good guy in movies once in a while. I just couldn't read Guy Pearce as the professor as everything told me he was innocent............yet.........there was no one else.

Notables: Alexandra Shipp as Ana, a student who had some kind of history with the professor; Clark Gregg as Paul, Evan's lawyer.

The title indicates a spinning man, but Evan wasn't shown spinning any which way. Yes, he may have felt the spinning inside. The last scene shows the mouse the family caught spinning on a wheel. Kind of contrived I thought.

Will you be surprised when you see the ending? I was. (5/10)

Violence: No. Sex: No. Nudity: No. Humor: No. Language: Yes, near the end. Rating: C

I thought this movie was great , I was hooked from the start .

The acting was topnotch , Pierce Brosnan and Guy Pierce were excellent in their roles. Minnie Driver played her part to perfection , it was kind of sad to see the underlying instability of their marriage showing in her words and actions .

I had read the reviews before I watched , and so I was expecting to be very disappointed with the ending ,but, I was not .

In the real world not everything is wrapped up perfectly and explained in detail.

I thought the ending was hard hitting, and realistic in a cruel way.

I highly recommend this movie , its not made to order .

I will keep my summation brief as you will have either seen it already or read the synopsis. What lies beneath this entire film, is the question of memory. How accurate is it? How reliable is any single person's account, of anything! What is truth? It's reflected in the philosophical teachings and comes into play within the context of a mystery thriller. In addition, what is guilt really? If a large number of people say something is so, does that make it real? Does having a personal philosophy have to match up with one's own actions?

The film raises these and other fascinating questions. I would hope that one would walk away wanting to explore philosophy in more depth. However, for the average popcorn going movie goer wanting their 'thriller' spoon fed to them, they will of course be disappointed.

Those seeking a little more substance will find this satisfying, playing out, exactly as it should.