Suspect Zero
Reviewed by H. W. Moss
Starring: Ben Kingsley, Aaron Eckhart, Kevin Chamberlin and Carrie-Anne Moss. Directed by E. Elias Merhige. Screenplay by Zak Penn and Billy Ray. MPAA rating: R Restricted, under 17 not admitted without parent or guardian.
Ben Kingsley lends his ferocious acting talent to the thriller Suspect Zero with mixed results. It s an intelligent script directed with a steady hand, but Zero is not particularly suspenseful although it is probably the most cerebral of the serial killer genre to emerge in several years. Put another way, this is no Silence of the Lambs, but they are in the same league.
This type of film has been mined so thoroughly for so long that almost any manhunt has a formulaic feel about it, even with a new plot twist and effective if low key cinematic techniques. Director and co-producer E. Elias Merhinge attempts to build toward a surprise climax by introducing a myriad of threads in the tapestry, but that s formulaic ingredient number one: Create a complicated story line with lots of red herrings to keep the viewer guessing. The resulting weave is satisfactory, but telegraphed.
The first thread to come unraveled is Benjamin O Ryan (Kingsley) who shows up at a roadside diner on a rainy night with a bunch of charcoal drawings and makes threatening comments to Harold Speck (Kevin Chamberlin). Speck (does the name
Richard Speck ring a bell?) is a traveling salesman who is found dead next morning inside his car with his eyelids removed. Almost immediately, another body with no eyelids is found, only this one has carvings on its torso. The state of the victims eyes has special meaning for FBI agent Thomas
Mackelway (Aaron Eckhart) who remarks to his recently re-united partner Fran Kulok
(Carrie-Anne Moss), A lidless eye that s always open. Obviously, the killer wants them to see something.
And that s a hint for us as well because O Ryan s charcoal drawings were made by remote viewing, what may be described as a psychic second sight that becomes the dominant theme in Zero. Apparently O Ryan was trained in Psychological Operations
-- Psyops -- which was a military concept adapted by the Bureau and kept secret. Psyops practitioners believe the enemy can manipulate your mind. Think Manchurian
Candidate. What the term does not imply is psychic ability, extra sensory perception of some kind, which is still the realm of Science Fiction and turns out to be the added edge in Zero.
So that s the innovative plot twist which turns it into a sort of Sci Fi buddy cop serial killer thriller. Lest that sound too smug, the story has its moments, the threats are real enough and unless you are as jaded as I, you may be surprised after all.
Mackelway is an agent with a past which, of course, has something to do with the present. Echart s face registers lip chewing concern that is just this side of wonderment and he perpetually looks as if he is about to think of something important.
Moss (no relation, darn) has a hard edge that was brought out in The Matrix
(1999), but is curiously absent here. Her character appears distracted even when she is supposed to be attentive, which she is called upon to be several times. The hint of intimacy between Kulok and Mackelway remains a hint that never blossoms, which is probably a good thing since the story already had enough complications. Kingsey has no parallel, his shaved head and airplane ears almost patented. The effect gives his visage an ominous cast no matter what role he takes. His performance in
Sexy Beast (2001) was nothing short of outstandingly intense and he can bring the same menace to a Disney family film, which he did in Tuck Everlasting (2002). He does not disappoint in Zero.
As bodies turn up across the country the hunt is on for the killer or killers and the reason why. Although it can be compared to a longish episode of television s Profiler,
Suspect Zero leads the viewer down enough true paths that the end may come as a surprise when it arrives. I consider it to be a reasonably good summer film.
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