Suspect Zero DVD Review:

FBI agent Thomas Mackelway receives faxes detailing missing people from an unknown source. Investigating a series of local murders, he finds corpses that have had their eyelids removed and a crossed zero that seems to be the calling card of a serial killer. On the hunt for the mystery man, Mackelway is joined by a fellow agent and old flame played by Carrie Anne Moss. Following up clues provided by the assassin, Mackelway discovers that the victims too have committed murder, and that the man they are looking for was once a member of the FBI. The killer they hunt is wising up the FBI to his own parallel investigations and executions; he was, it turns out, a member of FBI’s psy-ops, and has the ability to see and foresee crimes, but having become a renegade, is hardly different from the criminals he abhors. Mackelway has to find him, but will he stop him or use his powers to solve the case?

The serial killer genre has a life of its own, a fascination which draws us in (or lots of us anyway) even when there is little on offer but variations on a familiar theme. In this case the variation, the psychic serial killer, is a folder straight from the X-files. With an actor of Ben Kingsley’s ability, this provides some shackle-raising moments. His gnomic, man-from-nowhere look manages to suggest some of the disturbing mental powers, however, that the scriptwriters themselves could only fantasise about. Surprisingly, Eckhart and Moss manage to be uninteresting, really the biggest condemnation of the film; their love affair seems to be part of a subplot that was amputated in the final cut.

You might find this film as entertaining for its improbabilities as for its plot twists; this film’s improbability twists, if you will, include the inability of the FBI to locate the source of hundreds of faxes. The opening scene has a killer approach a victim in a bar, with a loud altercation between them, yet no-one remembers Ben Kingsley’s face. Two FBI agents set to work on a case that involves potentially dozens of corpses, although in fairness, they do solve it alone. The police appear and disappear in a chase sequence as if by magic. Asked if it’s possible for a serial killer to plan his crimes in such a way that he doesn’t he get caught, a professor of sociology mulls it over and replies with a slow yes. This is indeed a film in which all the characters seem to have picked up their life skills and intuitions from watching B movies. Suspect Zero is no better, and no worse than a late night TV film script that wound up by oversight in the cinema, and is now out on DVD.

PICTURE AND SOUND

Presented in 1.78 Anamorphic widescreen with a Dolby Digital 5.1 track, nothing could be missing from your experience of the original release except what was missing in the original.

BONUS MATERIAL

Other than scene selections, the only features on the DVD are the audio options in English or Czech, together with subtitles in English, Dutch, Arabic and Bulgarian, not to memtion Czech. There are trailers, other than for Suspect Zero, for Anacondas: the hunt for the wild orchid, Closer, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, and The Forgotten. It would have been interesting to hear the three stars talk about their career choices and attitude to work, but alas they don’t.



Dominic Gavin