SUSPECT ZERO

SUSPECT ZERO zeroes in on the face of Aaron Eckhart, a big movie star who should be bigger in a vehicle that won't be his break-through flick, but is a good step in the right direction. It is to Eckhart what 8MM is to Nicolas Cage, what 1995's Seven is to Brad Pitt, what Murder By Numbers is to Ben Chaplin, menacing murder movies tailor-made for leading men. 2001's Along Came a Spider was not this dark, but all these films could very well have a thread tying them together - so much so that this could be an extension of the theme from 1995's Copycat. And while it is no The Silence of the Lambs, SUSPECT ZERO turns out to be more of a sequel-in-spirit to Murder By Numbers than it is to Producer/Director E. Elias Merhige's previous flick, Shadow of the Vampire. Carrie-Anne Moss is getting type-cast, whether she knows it or not, and comes off here as the softer side of Trinity from The Matrix. Maybe filmmakers feel she is the anti-dote to the oppressive bleak atmospheres they choose to create with these repetitive stories, items that are beyond "film-noir", things I would call "deep film-gloom" - a huge wall of emptiness that embraces movies in this suddenly omnipresent genre.

Eckhart as Agent Tom Mackelway has his Dasani water on his desk, and we soon find out that he has a penchant for breaking the rules, as well as going by the book. It is this professional dilemma that gives our hero some kind of humanity - that inner struggle. Ben Kingsley has the ability to indulge in "remote viewing" - seeing murders that will be or have been committed. The trailer seems to give an awful lot of the plot away, and the basic plot is pretty good. It's just that it takes more than twenty minutes to get off the ground, and then has some unnecessary baggage like too many scenes where only a masochist would keep their eyes on the screen. Eckhart looks completely different from his roles in Erin Brockovich and Your Friends & Neighbors - a good sign that his good looks can be used in a chameleon-like fashion, something that is not currently part of the resume' of Carrie-Anne Moss. There's intrigue, you will engage your brain and think quite a bit, and SUSPECT ZERO manages to survive its flaws to emerge as interesting big screen glossy B movie. As entertainment Suspect Zero does succeed, but the continuity is broken up by the plot twists and the incessant - sometimes vulgar - focus on extreme violent imagery. And what is it with these murder flicks and numerology - Suspect Zero, 7, 8MM, Murder by #s ????

For cast & credits go here:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0324127/fullcredits

This film was viewed at the Fenway, 201 Brookline Ave., Boston, 7 PM August 25, 2004 by
rock journalist joe viglione. http://www.joeviglione.com