Suspect Zero (2004)

To me, this movie is perfection.

The first must-see film of the year.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Suspect Zero is an interesting piece, particularly to me. Although it's almost universally looked at as a failure, a shell of what it could have been, I'm crazy about it the way it is and think they did a fantastic job. It has a bit of a muddy past: Zak Penn wrote the script back in the 90's, after which it gained much interest from the likes of Tom Cruise, Ben Affleck and others. It took til 2004 to finally get the film made, with a version that many frown upon and frankly consider a shitty movie. Balls to them. It's a grim, eerie serial killer chiller with an atmosphere thick enough to slice with a razor, and one extremely unsettling lead performance from a haggard, haunted Ben Kingsley. He plays Benjamin O Ryan, an ex FBI agent. Or is he? He's efficiently hunting down and murdering random people (or are they?), leaving vicious visual calling cards and deliberately leaving victims lying on state lines to ensure the Bureau's involvement. In particular he takes a shine to raw boned Agent Mackleway (Aaron Eckhart), leaving specific clues for him. O Ryan employs a metaphysical method of finding his victims, using an old psychic technique from a scrapped program the feds once explored. This gives the filmmakers a reason to throw sketchy, disconcerting images, sounds and editing our way, providing a visually and aurally chafing experience. The film's director, E. Elias Merhige, is infamous for making the surreal, experimental shocker 'Begotten', and he brings the same stark, discomforting qualities to the proceedings here. I'm reminded of another experimental director who brought a near elemental aesthetic to an otherwise grounded serial killer flick: Tarsem Singh with his brilliant psychological fantasy 'The Cell'. Suspect Zero is the grimy, fragmentary cousin to The Cell's grandiose beauty. There's also traces of Sev7n, Silence Of The Lambs, Millennium and more, yet the film finds its own groove and never sinks into derivative gestures. Composer Clint Mansell ditches his trademark celestial tones for something truly unique, a dread soaked nightmarish lullaby that gives the film an otherworldly tone to linger in dreams. If you can forgive a few instances of murky plotting and one or two cheap plot turns, you'll hopefully enjoy this as much as me. It really deserves better attention and praise than its got so far.

I've been watching so many terrible movies lately I almost don't know what to say about a decent film. "Suspect Zero" was definitely good.Agent Thomas Mackelway (Aaron Eckhart) is demoted to the Albuquerque F.B.I. field office from the Dallas field office. Right away you can tell that he is a big fish in a small pond and would rather be anywhere else. Before he can settle into his new digs he is thrust into a murder case chasing down Benjamin O'Ryan (Ben Kingsley) who is so elusive that he seems almost supernatural.For those who like cop movies this is a nice addition to the collection. There is the old fashion following the evidence with the small bonus of a killer that's seemingly taunting agent Mackelway. The whodunit aspect is a non-factor as the face of the killer is shown to the audience right away, but there is always the 'why'. And most of the time the 'why' is far more interesting than the 'who'.There is moderate intensity and solid acting. Ben Kingsley delivers really well as the near psychotic killer. But if you're thinking--"Oh, another psychotic genius that must be stopped. How original,"--don't. Yes he is a bit psychotic and he has above average intelligence but that's where the parallels end with all other similar movies. It's worth a watch.

Directed by E Elias Merhige who made the intriguing Shadow of the Vampire comes another film with an intriguing premise.Aaron Eckhart plays a FBI agent Tom Mackelway who seems to have been downgraded after being suspended. He has moved to the Albuquerque office and immediately starts investigating a killing.He also starts receiving faxes about unsolved crimes. Mackleway seems to have some sort of empathy and vision regarding what seems to be random acts of murder but some of the clues point towards an ex FBI agent O'Ryan (Ben Kingsley) who might be a suspect or can see in the mind of a super serial killer and wants to assist Mackleway in catching him.The film starts promisingly enough but it quickly became muddled and confusing. At times I had to rewind parts of the film and put the volume up to understand it. The muddle lets the film down, Eckhart and Kingsley are fine, Carrie-Anne Moss is wasted.

This film was absolutely a wonderful treat to watch. Ben Kingsley was definitely at the top of this game. Ben plays this quasi serial killer named Benjamin O'Ryan. We are perfectly forced to remain within the constraints of the way this story is told that makes it so difficult to stop watching. We soon find ourselves opening up to the other characters in this film such a our FBI investigator Thomas Mackelway (Aaron Eckhart). Thomas seems to have his own little hidden secret in which were are soon exposed to. What's so creepy about this film is this Benjamin's uncanny gift of remote viewing, which is a highly unlikely situation with most people. The federal government was to have supposedly started this remote viewing project from a spin-off of a Russian program considered to do the same things.During the development of the story we soon are introduced to another investigator named Fran Kulog (Carrie-Anne Moss) who had supposedly earlier been involved with Thomas Mackelway in a relationship. However, we soon find out that this relationship had somehow gone sour because Thomas was tortured by his incessant desire to track down one of the scummiest serial killers out there. We discover that Thomas actually had gone across the border into Mexico without prior approval to do so and kidnapped this rapist Raymond Starkey (Keith Campbell). Thomas was suspended for doing this and was told to get some psychological help. At every step of the way, Benjamin taunts Thomas by purposefully leaving clues designated to perpetuate his game-like killing of these people. Thomas Mackelway arrives in Albuquerque, and his first case is the murder of a traveling salesman, Harold Speck (Kevin Chamberlin), who had a zero mark on his body. The FBI was called to the scene since the body was found in a car located just across the state line. Thomas grows increasingly estranged by the case & his insanity grows all encompassing as he tries to find the link between the victims that will lead him to their killer.The film's intensity is only too well topped off by explicit details of newspaper clippings and hundreds of well-composed charcoal drawings, many of which help drive the plot along. There is a dark, demonic imagery involved with this film which I think should be present since we are dealing with a gruesome subject. We find both men torturing themselves within their own minds, thusly, we find caught up in a reverie of overlapping and sometimes mis-shapen images that are supposedly mimicking blurring thoughts of a remote or E.S.P. type origin.The visual style reminded me of "Seven" (1995) which seemed to be perfectly captured by Director David Fincher. However no director has yet come as close to match Fincher's unique visual composition and cinematography. All of the shots in Seven are carefully composed and never falter in its editing & pace.We also have a very strong performance from Harry Lennix who played Rich Carlton, Thomas Mackelway's superior who always seems to have some kind of sarcastic comment to throw out to get Thomas's head out of the clouds.Ultimately in the end, the film achieves great power during the confrontation between Thomas, Benjamin, and Fran. The showdown with undiscovered serial finally comes to a head. We finally discover how disturbed Benjamin really is when he begs Thomas to go ahead and kill him just as he has seen in his visions since he has and will continue to be tortured by these paranormal occurrences.