Movie Review Because I Said So

Because I Said So (2007) 

Directed by Michael Lehmann 

Written by Jessie Nelson

Starring Diane Keaton, Mandy Moore, Gabriel Macht, Tom Everett Scott, Lauren Graham, Piper Perabo

Release Date December 2nd, 2006 

Published December 2nd, 2006 

In my nearly seven years writing film criticism I have seen some awful movies. Rarely however, have I seen something as brutal as the new romantic comedy Because I Said So starring Diane Keaton. It's not that the film is as badly made as say, Deuce Bigelow, or as poorly acted as the indie feature Undiscovered. No, what makes Because I Said So so notably awful is the cast.

How does a movie starring the legendary Diane Keaton, the lovable Mandy Moore and the reliable Lauren Graham, end up this brutally awful? That is a notable achievement, taking three beloved actors and forcing them into a movie so insufferable that even their innate appeal is dimmed by how terrible this movie is. That director Michael Lehmann once directed Heathers, a legit cult classic, makes this epic misfire so much more of a mystery. Then again, Lehmann also directed Hudson Hawk. Hmm.

In Because I Said So Diane Keaton plays Daphne, a mother of three beautiful daughters who, on the verge of turning 60, has just one wish. Daphne wants to find a man for her youngest daughter, Millie (Mandy Moore). To this end, Daphne commits herself to the task of finding Millie's ideal man by creating an online dating ad for her and then interviewing potential candidates herself. The search leads to a nice guy architect named Josh (Tom Everett Scott) who mom absolutely loves. Also in the running is a nice guy guitar player named Johnny (Gabriel Macht) who mom doesn't so much like but is Millie's perfect type.

If you need a road map to figure which guy Millie ends up with you have either never seen a movie before or have lived your entire life in a cave; cut off from logic. Because I Said So is not merely predictable, predictability I could forgive. No, Because I Said So is such a trainwreck of romantic comedy cliches and artificial roadblocks that it becomes unbearable to watch this cast enact such sub-sitcom levels of convoluted comic idiocy. 

Diane Keaton is a legend. She has won the Oscar for best actress. She has even made a few very bad movies, First Wives Club, Hanging Up, to name a few. But, she has never been this awful in a movie. Her performance in Because I Said So is an epic disaster of over the top gesticulations, shrill dialogue delivery and logic free character development. As a director herself, it's a wonder how Keaton did not see this character going so badly. Or maybe she did. There is a good ten minute sequence in the film in which Keaton doesn't say a word. I can't prove this, but I like to think this was Keaton's silent protest of the movie. I can hope, can't I?

Because I Said So doesn't just slime the great Ms. Keaton, it nearly destroys the career of Mandy Moore. The former pop star had come a very long way in her acting career since her ugly debut in the weepy teen romance A Walk To Remember. She was terrific in a bitchy supporting role in Saved, charming in a bitchy role in American Dreamz, and utterly darling in her cameo on TV's Scrubs. Sadly and unfortunately in Because I Said So, Moore looks like a novice actress, tripping over punchlines and allowing the movie to make her look like a fool in nearly every scene. 

Moore should find some way to sue director Michael Lehmann for allowing her to appear so utterly befuddled onscreen. This is a career low-point that would be difficult to recover from for the veteran Diane Keaton. For Ms. Moore, she may have to look to a TV career before considering film again. Lauren Graham of TV's Gilmore Girls and Piper Perabo of Coyote Ugly round out what is, on paper, a stellar cast. How you make a movie this awful with this cast is truly astonishing. Both Graham and Perabo are thanking their lucky stars that their roles barely rise above cameos.

How bad is Because I Said So? Here is just a hint of what this movie believes is funny. Two scenes of Diane Keaton watching internet porn. Two scenes of Ms. Keaton, legs in the air screaming to the heavens, a dog humping furniture. Some of the most stilted and awkward sex talk in the history of film. Not one, but two all family sing alongs. And, because the family runs a catering business, 3 scenes of people covered in cake.

Now, I can hear skeptics out there reading along and thinking 'of course he doesn't like this movie, it's a chick flick'. Allow me to explain how this works. I loved The Holiday, I loved Love Actually and I gave a glowing recommendation to the movie The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. This is not about genre, or target audience. This is about Because I Said So being one of the worst movies I have ever seen.

In the words of the great Roger Ebert, from the title of one of his great books, I hated, hated, hated, hated, hated this movie. Because I Said So is a painfully awful, nightmare of a movie that poor Diane Keaton may never recover from. She is lucky that she was once in Annie Hall and won a very deserved Academy award for Best Actress because otherwise it would be very easy to write her off after a disaster like this.

As it stands, I'm sure Diane Keaton will be back. Let's just hope she fires her agent before he allows her to make another movie remotely as awful as Because I Said So.

Movie Review: Road to Perdition

Road to Perdition (2002) 

Directed by Sam Mendes 

Written by David Self 

Starring Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Tyler Hoechlin, Jude Law, Daniel Craig

Release Date July 12th, 2002 

Published July 11th, 2002 

Tom Hanks is the ultimate affable good guy, in many ways he's the essence of the everyman. The party animal from Bachelor Party, the doofus cross dresser from Bosom Buddies, and the ultimate noble good guy, Forrest Gump. It is this reputation that made Road To Perdition so special. In Perdition, Hanks portrays a cold hearted mob assassin seeking revenge. It is a stretch, because he's Tom Hanks but a man with two Oscars under his belt never lacks for confidence.

In Road To Perdition, Hank's is Michael Sullivan, a hitman for the Rock Island branch of Al Capone's Chicago Mob. Paul Newman is John Rooney, Sullivan's boss, a man who is like a father to Michael. That dynamic changes dramatically  when a 'business' meeting goes bad. Rooney's actual son, played by Daniel Craig, kills a mob associate unexpectedly and the hit is witnessed by Michael's son, Michael Jr, played by Tyler Hoechlin. Unwilling to let his son be caught by either the cops or the mob, John Rooney turns on Michael and decides to have Michael and Michael Jr killed. 

Also on the Sullivan's’ trail is a hitman named Harlan "the Reporter" Maguire (Jude Law). Maguire is called The Reporter because after he kills someone he photographs the body and sells the picture to the newspapers. It's a great gimmick, a well fleshed out bit of detail that Jude Law clearly relishes. Law is wildly charismatic and you can sense how much he enjoyed playing this character in Road to Perdition. It's a delicious supporting role, superbly played. 

Road To Perdition has a strong narrative, hard boiled dialogue, and, of course, the acting is first rate. Especially good is the legendary Paul Newman as the pragmatic mob boss forced to choose between his son and his adopted son. Newman gives two flawless monologues that should net him an Academy Award nomination, if not a win. Hanks made his Oscar reservations the day he signed onto the picture. Hanks never trades on his persona. For Hanks, Michael Sullivan is a challengingly different role and he makes it look easy. With any icy stare and everyman look he transforms into a surprisingly menacing version of himself.

Director Sam Mendes, who won the Academy Award for his first picture American Beauty, beats the sophomore jinx with an amazing depiction of real life violence and it's consequence. It's about the bonds of family and especially fatherhood. As Newman's character explains "Sons were put on this earth to trouble their fathers". Of course Conrad L. Hall does yet another spectacular job. His cinematography is damn near flawless, especially at the film’s moving climax.

If I had any problem with the film it was the feeling of inevitability. Every action by every character seems as if it were written in stone long before it happened. This inevitability makes the film a little predictable. Also, the films ending, while very moving, lacks the catharsis the audience desperately needs. Still, you can go ahead and pencil in Road To Perdition on your fantasy Oscar ballot.

Movie Review Gods and Generals

Gods and Generals (2003) 

Directed by Ronald F. Maxwell 

Written by Ronald F. Maxwell 

Starring Robert Duvall, Stephen Lang, Jeff Daniels, Mira Sorvino, Frankie Faison

Release Date February 21st, 2003 

Published February 20th, 2003 

The Civil War isn't quite the blockbuster story that popcorn-loving audiences seek out in search of escapist fare. So I must credit Ted Turner and the makers of Gods & Generals for attempting such a bold, non-commercial effort. That said, at well over three hours in length and with a decidedly pro-South approach, Gods & Generals is not only non-commercial, it's non-watchable.

A dramatic retelling of the Battle of Fredericksburg, Gods & Generals stars Stephen Lang as Southern Colonel Stonewall Jackson and Robert Duvall as General Robert E. Lee. On the Northern side it's Jeff Daniels reprising his role from Gettysburg as Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, though since Fredericksburg is chronologically before Gettysburg, Chamberlain has just joined the Maine contingent of the Northern army on his way to becoming a Colonel. Duvall inherited the role of Robert E. Lee from Martin Sheen who held the role in Gettysburg. 

Of course I'm getting well ahead of myself. Gods & Generals details the beginning of a three part film series that again actually began with it's middle segment, Gettysburg, in 1993. This first installment is about how Virginia was drawn into the war on the side of the South. Representatives of President Lincoln offered General Robert E. Lee the command of all Northern armies to fight the secessionist South. Feeling sympathy for the South's states rights stance Lee declined and began to organize a Virginia regiment to fight on the side of the South. A Virginia Military Institute professor, Thomas Jackson, whose students are quick to join in, also joins Lee. Jackson joins up telling friends that his priorities are God, family, Virginia and country.

Looking for a quick end to the war, President Lincoln is prepared to fight Lee's Virginia troops and the supporting armies from the South in Fredericksburg, with the feeling that without Virginia, the South would fall quickly. Sensing a moral imperative to the end of slavery and reuniting of the country, a philosophy professor from Maine named Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain joined the Northern army over the objection of his wife Fanny (Mira Sorvino, in a cameo role). Chamberlain is joined by his less idealistic brother Thomas (C. Thomas Howell), who doesn't believe in the cause as much as he believes in helping his brother.

Those are the recognizable characters, but like the classic Hollywood epics of the 1930's and 40's, there really is a cast of thousands. Thousands of actors and committed Civil War re-enactors came together under the direction of Ronald F. Maxwell, who also directed Gettysburg, to recreate The Battle of Fredericksburg with nearly flawless detail. From strategy to historic legend, right down to the costuming, Gods & Generals is as faithful as a movie could be to it's subject matter.

The accuracy and precision involved in the recreation of the battle is truly commendable. Unfortunately, all that surrounds it is snooze inducing. Speech after speech after speech drone on and on and on. When Lang, Duvall or Daniels isn't on screen, it's nearly impossible to tell the Northern and Southern armies apart, even as the recreation of the battle is extraordinarily detailed . In the awesome confusion of muskets and cannon fire, telling them apart becomes an entirely futile and exhausting effort and audiences are left out of the film until after the battle when the major characters are back upfront explaining who won the day and why.

That confusion however isn't the film’s biggest problem. The biggest problem is the script, which paints the army from Virginia as the noblest army ever to walk on to a battlefield. To watch Gods & Generals as pure history would lead one to believe that Stonewall Jackson was a combination of Superman and Ghandi. That's not to criticize Stephen Lang, who has a few very effective scenes. It would be difficult for any actor to portray Stonewall Jackson as the second coming of Christ but he does the best he can with the role. We can argue forever, and historians have, why the Civil War was fought, but in the end neither side could live up to the way they are portrayed in the script, written by the director Ronald Maxwell.

The film’s length at just under 7,200 hours is deathly. Actually it was just under 4 hours but it feels a lot longer. Though the battle scenes may hold your attention, the scenes that don't include massive explosions are tremendously dull and filled with pious speeches from characters that Maxwell seems to want to put up for sainthood. I don't mind long movies, I own the nearly five hour versions of Lord Of The Rings and Apocalypse Now Redux, but Gods & Generals has some obvious segments that even junior editors could easily clip out without hurting the film’s narrative in the least. One less interminable speech by Stonewall Jackson about God's judgment and the film would be half as long. 

What Gods and Generals needs more than anything iss an editor, a good one. An editor who could reign in the visionary director and hip him to the necessity for brevity in modern cinema. Gods and Generals would play better as a television movie, broken up over two or three days. There, the commitment to accuracy could be appreciated more while not taxing the backside of everyone watching it. 

Movie Review Monte Carlo

Monte Carlo (2011) 

Directed by Thomas Bezucha 

Written by April Blair, Maria Maggenti, Thomas Maggenti 

Starring Selena Gomez, Leighton Meester, Katie Cassidy

Release Date July 1st, 2011 

Published July 2nd, 2011

With Selena Gomez on the cover of the September issue of Elle Magazine, their LatinX special, I went and found one of the few times when I have had the chance to write about Selena Gomez. In 2011, Gomez co-starred with Leighton Meester and Katie Cassidy in the forgettable but pleasant teen comedy Monte Carlo. Selena Gomez proved to be a very natural lead for a teen comedy and because of her, Monte Carlo is more enjoyable than many similar teen girl comedies.

Monte Carlo is the story of three friends who travel to Paris for one of the worst tours of all time and stumble upon one truly unexpected adventure that finds one of them impersonating a tabloid superstar, all three jetting off to Monte Carlo, and each finding love in unique ways. Is it a great adventure? No, but for what it is, it's not bad.

Selena Gomez is the star of Monte Carlo as Grace, a Texas High Schooler who has just graduated. Her plan is to head off to Paris with her best friend, Emma (Katie Cassidy) but her mom (Andie McDowell) and step-dad (Brett Cullen) have an addition to her plans. Dad will upgrade Grace and Emma's travel plans if they don't mind having his daughter Meg (Leighton Meester) join the trip.

Naturally, there is tension between Grace and Meg; they haven't exactly bonded since their parents got together. They will need to get along however as once the trio arrive in Paris they quickly find themselves abandoned by their terrifically awful tourist group. The tour scenes are quite funny with the speedy tour guide dragging the group past Paris's greatest landmarks in less time than it would take to snap a picture.

Stuck in the rain and miles from their modest hostel accommodations, the girls stop off at a luxury hotel to dry off. That's when the adventure begins. At the hotel Emma and Meg encounter Cordelia Winthrop Scott (Gomez) and find that Grace is a dead ringer for the heiress. After overhearing that Cordelia is pulling a disappearing act that will have her out of the way for a week the girls hatch an accidental plot to replace her.

The plan was just to take Cordelia's luxury suite for a night in order to get out of the rain but the following morning finds the trio ushered to a limo and on to a private jet headed to Monte Carlo. From there the plot cleverly conspires to keep the girls from escaping. Most films of this sort, modest, middle budget, niche comedies, skimp on character motivation. Monte Carlo actually takes care to make sure that the characters are moving in particular directions for particular reasons.

Grace may not want to keep up the Cordelia charade but when she finds that a children's charity will suffer without Cordelia on hand to raise funds, she changes her tune. It helps that she is immediately smitten with Theo (Pierre Boulanger) the scion of the charity founder. Meg too wants to escape this situation but when she falls for an Aussie vacationer her plans change as well.

Monte Carlo is far from brilliant comedy but within its modest ambitions it is successful at earning smiles and a few minor laughs. The young stars are sweet and best of all they perform with purpose in a movie that has a clear motivation and coheres to a specific plot. Again, I cannot express how nice it is to watch a movie, especially a teen-centric comedy, that cares why characters do the things they do.

Selena Gomez was on the track for stardom ever since she started out as a regular playmate for Barney the Dinosaur. Gomez is sweet, smart and pretty and the makers of Monte Carlo showcase her playfulness as well as her beauty. Monte Carlo gets extra credit from me for portraying Gomez's young romance with a light and comic touch. The romance is sweet and chaste and fitting of the young and playful tone of the rest of Monte Carlo. 

Leighton Meester also showed big star potential in Monte Carlo. Meester's roles prior to Monte Carlo had shown her to be a bland beauty with a mostly blank, expressionless face. In Monte Carlo however, especially in chastely romantic scenes with Aussie hunk Luke Bracey, Meester is lively and fun in an effortless yet PG friendly way. Considering that the role Meester took on just before Monte Carlo was the unwatchable supposed 'thriller' The Roommate, Monte Carlo was Casablanca by comparison. 

Monte Carlo doesn't reinvent the teen comedy wheel but in its formulaic, PG comedy way, it's a pleasant distraction and a breath of fresh air compared to a kid comedies of the same time period, 2010 and 11, like Mr. Popper's Penguins or even a rom-com like Something Borrowed, both of which looked downright amateurish compared to the effortless family friendly fun of Monte Carlo which is both kid flick and modest rom-com.'

Movie Review: The Last Castle

The Last Castle (2001) 

Directed by Rod Lurie 

Written by David Scarpa, Graham Yost 

Starring Robert Redford, James Gandolfini, Mark Ruffalo, Delroy Lindo 

Release Date October 19th, 2001 

Published October 18th, 2001 

The Last Castle is yet another film that falls into the category of could have been great. All the elements are there including a strong cast, headed up by Robert Redford and James Gandolfini, and a good director in former film critic Rod Lurie who directed The Contender, one of the best films of 2000. Unfortunately The Last Castle is too predictable and hampered by lead performance by Mr. Redford which lacks investment.

The Last Castle is the story of General Eugene Irwin (Redford) who, we are told, is a legend from Vietnam to the Gulf War to Bosnia. Now, Irwin is a prisoner following court martial and is sentenced to 10 years in prison for reasons left unsaid for a reason. Irwin serves his time in the military prison known as 'The Castle.' It's called the castle because it looks like a castle but also because it is ruled by a tyrannical wannabe King. 

James Gandolfini plays the malevolent warden, Commandant Edward Winter, who rules his prison with fear and treatment many might consider cruel. General Irwin wants nothing more than to just serve his time but after witnessing abuse of prisoners, and outright murder, Irwin decides to lead a revolt. Using a prison informant, CPL Sam Yates (Mark Ruffalo), as a double agent, Irwin sets in motion a plan to cause an uprising that will be witnessed by Winter's superior, General Wheeler (Delroy Lindo). That should be enough to get Winter removed from command. 

The story of The Last Castle is entertainingly told with some moments of genius including a scene early in the revolt involving the kidnapping of another General played by Delroy Lindo. However Lindo's character seems curiously out sync, he seems to show up just to setup other scenes and acts as more of a plot device than a character. What completely undoes The Last Castle however is Redford. It goes without saying that Robert Redford is a brilliant actor, a true legend, but he is on auto-pilot in The Last Castle and his lack of interest in the plot and his own character is palpable. 

Redford's previous film to The Last Castle was the sleep inducing lead role in The Horse Whisperer and he brought the same sleepy disinterest in performing to General Irwin who seems to have no passion for what he's doing.  Redford's Irwin seems more inconvenienced by having to lead an uprising than he appears to care about the men he's seen being abused. I understand it's best to remain calm and collected in the circumstances of a plot like but there is calm and then there is a sense of complete apathy.

Gandolfini on the other hand is passionate, energetic and thin-skinned. His war with Irwin begins with a minor verbal slight from the General. Gandolfini evokes MASH's Frank Burns on steroids, mad with power and envy. If only Redford had a little Hawkeye Pierce in his General Irwin the sparring between these two characters would have least had some good one liners and Hawkeye was if anything passionate.

It's sad that The Last Castle represented one of Gandolfini's best performances and he's let down by a legendary co-star who couldn't be bothered to try and match his co-stars effort. Gandolfini is almost so good in The Last Castle that I would recommend it just for him, Sadly, the film drags whenever Redford's laconic General is in the lead and that's most of The Last Castle. 

Movie Review Spy Game

Spy Game (2001)

Directed by Tony Scott 

Written by David Arata, Michael Frost Beckner 

Starring Robert Redford, Brad Pitt, Catherine McCormack, Stephen Dillane 

Release Date November 21, 2001 

Published November 25th, 2001 

Director Tony Scott is not known for substance. The famed director of Crimson Tide, Top Gun and Enemy Of the State is more identified a with stylish slickness that has almost become a genre all it's own, an offshoot of the traditional action genre but cleaner. I would like to say that with Spy Game things changed for Tony Scott and he took on a more serious and substantial version of the action genre, something fitting the massive star-power at his disposal. But no, Spy Game is as slick and substance free as any other Tony Scott vehicle. 

Fortunately it worked for Spy Game. Scott's slick style combined with electric performances by Brad Pitt and Robert Redford make Spy Game very entertaining ever as it is a fully mindless action spectacle directed like a music video. Spy Game is the story of CIA agent Nathan Muir (Redford) who, on what was to be the day of his career as a spy, must find a way to save the life of his former protégé Tom Bishop (Pitt).

Bishop was captured during a daring rescue attempt in a Chinese prison. Now, on the eve of Chinese trade talks, the CIA and the executive branch are deciding how best to keep a lid on this possible scandal. The option favored by most, including the President of the United States, is to let the Chinese execute Bishop. The movie unfolds  that story while also layering in the backstory of how Muir's legendary spy met and trained Bishop as the next generation of American spy. 

It's rather fitting when you think about it, Robert Redford essentially passing the movie star torch to Brad Pitt. That would likely have made more sense in the 90s before Pitt became one of the biggest stars in the world and needed a rub from someone like Redford, but regardless, these two are a perfect pair to provide generational counterpoint to one another. They also both formerly known as the sexiest man alive which makes them the perfect surfaces to be reflected by Scott's style over substance brand. 

There is plenty of backstory in Spy Game and much of it plays off of CIA history. Redford's Muir recruiting and training Pitt's Bishop in flashbacks set in the 1980s when the CIA was all over Lebanon and the Middle East trying to use traditional spycraft to get a handle on Middle Eastern relations. My favorite parts of Spy Game are the stories of the CIA in Lebanon in the 80's, scenes that are shocking yet very believable given Lebanon's colorful history. 

To be completely honest Spy Game may not have a brain in it's head but neither did The Fast and the Furious and that went on to be one of the best brainless movie franchises in history. What makes Spy Game so good is Redford who plays a brilliant game of mental chess with the audience and with everyone else in the movie. Redford is always one step ahead of everyone and yet takes time to wink at the audience and let us in time to get the joke. It's a great performance and it elevates Spy Game to more than just another slick, fast-paced, action flick. 

Movie Review: 'Mindhunters'

Mindhunters (2005) 

Directed by Renny Harlin 

Written by Wayne Kramer, Kevin Brobdin, Ehren Kruger

Starring Val Kilmer, LL Cool J, Jonny Lee Miller, Kathryn Morris

Release Date May 13th, 2005 

Published May 12th, 2005 

Mindhunters was a strange affair. The film was completed in 2002 but did not get released by the late Dimension Films until 2005. Why? Who knows, they probably realized the the stinker they had on their hands. After finally blowing the dust off this crusty little thriller with LL Cool J, Val Kilmer and Christian Slater, the newly, non-Weinstein regime at Dimension films finally dumped the film into theaters. Why they bothered with theaters instead of directing it to the video stores of 2005 where it belonged must have been some kind of contractual obligation. There is no other explanation for why garbage like Mindhunters ever made it to such a wide release.

LL Cool J is the star of Mindhunters-- he must have drawn the short straw-- as a shady cop invited to join a group of rookie FBI profilers on a training mission on a deserted island military base. Val Kilmer is the leader of this little band but his role is little more than a cameo.  And, yes, that is Christian Slater as one of the profilers of whose fate the trailer and commercials spoiled mightily and for no good reason whatsoever.

Joining Cool J at the head of the cast is Johnny Lee Miller as Lucas and Kathryn Morris from TV's Cold Case as Sara. They are joined by a group of other semi-recognizable early 2000s character actors including Eion Bailey then of TV's ER, Patricia Velasquez and Clifton Collins Jr. each of whom line up to be victims of the films serial killer as if they were camp counselors having sex at Crystal Lake. Canon fodder is a kind description of the roles played by Bailey, Velasquez and Collins. 

Essentially this little group is on the island to profile a fictional serial killer who is obsessed with time. The military base is set up as a small town with dummies standing in for real people. The profilers must locate the crime scenes, examine the fake dead bodies and assemble the clues that could lead them to the fictional killer. However, as they quickly find out from the death of one of their own, this serial killer is very real.

A search of the island shows the young profilers are either alone on the island, or not entirely thorough, thus leading to the obvious conclusion that one of them is in fact the killer. As the Rube Goldbergian murder devices unfold and remove one obvious victim after another, it is not hard to decipher which characters are going to survive and which is the killer. Morris, Miller and L.L Cool J all have main character powers so it's a safe bet that they are among the top suspects. 

This mess of horror film aesthetic and  thriller clichés attempts to fool audiences but not with clever plot twists and good character work.  No, director Renny Harlin's weapon of choice is utterly incomprehensible stupidity. The film was edited by Neil Farrell and Paul Martin Smith both of whom are wishing the Editors union accepted synonyms like the Directors union's well known Allen Smithee. Mindhunters seems as if it were assembled from different versions of the script each featuring different killers, victims, and survivors. This owes more to Harlin's baffling direction and Wayne Kramer's script than anything these poor and likely tortured editors did.

The mess extends to the acting and dialogue as well, as the confused cast bounds from one ridiculous setup to the next seemingly unaware of which version of the script they are acting from. LL Cool J, Johnny Lee Miller and the rest of the cast wander about looking at each other and seeming to say "No, I'm the killer!" "No I'm the killer!" "Are not!" "Am too!" and on and on throughout most of the final 30 minutes of the film. And somehow the killer still turns out to be easily predictable.

Mindhunters is a real shame because this is a very talented cast. Catherine Morris appeared to be a legit star on her TV show Cold Case in 2005. On that clever CBS crime procedural, her steely demeanor perfectly evoked her tough but vulnerable FBI Agent. In Mindhunters, however, Morris is thoroughly done in by a confused and disorienting script that may or may not have had her as both killer and victim at different points during filming.

LL Cool J, Christian Slater and Val Kilmer are shells of the actors who have flirted with stardom in the past. Kilmer we forget was once Batman, but he is far from even that flawed blockbuster in Mindhunters where apparently he owed the producers a favor. How else can you explain why he accepted this minor and entirely forgettable role. Mindhunters was sadly par for the course at the time for Slater who was coming off of his asleep-at-the-wheel lead role in Alone In The Dark. Mindhunters came at a time well before Mr Robot came around and brought Slater back to the respectable world of working actors. 

LL Cool J is at least an enjoyable star to head up and ham up Mindhunters and his is the only thing remarkable about the film. LL Cool , even in this terrible movie, had the charisma of an A-list celebrity and that helped him to outshine some of this deeply confusing script that I'm sure featured him as killer and victim and survivor and savior at different points during the production.

Johnny Lee Miller, Eion Bailey and Clifton Collins Jr. were terrific young actors in 2005 who had succeeded in the past with strong character work. Miller was once quite the rising star after leading man after starring with his then wife Angelina Jolie in Hackers and then gave a strong turn in the cult hit Trainspotting. Bailey made a good impression with a small role in Fight Club and a memorable performance in the HBO mini-series Band of Brothers. And as for Collins, his best work was in front of him as he once earned genuine Oscar buzz for his supporting role in Capote opposite Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

Watching this terrific cast suffer at the hands of director Renny Harlin is quite painful. All of this talent and  Harlin can do nothing with it but line them up on a formula horror thriller assembly line and eliminate them one by one until he's done picking names out of a hat to decide who lives and who is the killer. To call Renny Harlin a hack is far too simple. After once looking like a star director in the action genre, Harlin regressed as a filmmaker so much that he went from blockbusters to making movies that no longer see a theatrical release. Harlin hasn't seen one of his movies reach theaters in wide release since he made he vomited Exorcist The Beginning into theaters in 2004 to widespread derision and empty box office coffers.