Suspect Zero (2004) Review

Suspect Zero (2004)

Suspect Zero follows FBI agent Tom Mackelway, who, while on the trail of an apparent serial killer, discovers that said killer is really another agent, using his psychic powers to hunt down other serial killers. 

You’d think with a film that sells itself on being a thriller about a serial killer hunting other serial killers, and featuring Aaron Eckhart, Ben Kingsley, and Carrie-Anne Moss at the helm, that nothing could possibly go wrong, and yet, we’re left with a movie that is almost good, but hugely misses the mark. What starts out as an eerie mystery regarding Kingsley’s O’Ryan, quickly turns into a muddy affair that never quite knows what it’s doing with itself, seeding unnecessary backstories for Mackelway, constantly changing the nature of certain characters to fit scenes, and leaving you confounded in it’s bizarre plot that feels concocted after a drunken viewing of Se7en.

When all is said and done, there isn't much substance to the story which depends on a belief in remote viewing, the concept that everyone is loosely connected via brain energy and when properly trained, one can view the future and the lives of others. A neat idea in concept that is used to hokey effect and doesn’t mesh in the slightest with the rest of the story, with O’Ryan not even turning out to be the eponymous “suspect zero”, who is really some no name, faceless guy who is merely a means to a lackluster end. 

We do get a promising cast in Harry Lennix, Carrie-Anne Moss, Ben Kingsley, and Aaron Eckhart, but like the rest of this film, they were severely misused. Kingsley shows flashes of excellence, but whether it be poor writing or his ever-changing accent, it’s hard to take him too serious. Much holds the same for Eckhart, though he doesn’t seem to provide anything other than a pretty face, with his chemistry with Moss nonexistent throughout. 

Suspect Zero, directed by E. Elias Merhige, is a movie that, had it had even a modicum of decent direction, could have been genuinely promising. What we get however is a messy, disjointed thriller that tries, and fails, to cash in on the success of movies like Memento and Silence of the Lambs. 

5.2/10