Image copyright © by Marcus Trahan

Suspect Zero

(UK, Germany, USA), 2004)

This could have been a decent thriller about a serial killer except for its insistence of bringing in the hogwash known as “remote viewing.” Look it up if you don’t know what it is. There is a DVD extra where the director, E. Elias Merhige, a true believer, conducts an “experiment” wherein someone returns astonishing results. It is laughable. The leader of the exercise uses methods of cold reading that were old when they were building the pyramids. But like I said, it’s an okay thriller if you can ignore the bullshit. I couldn’t.

Aside: We have been increasingly amused over the years by the proliferation of “producer” credits in films these days. Used to be, there was just one producer, and sometimes he didn’t even want screen credit, as Irving Thalberg. These days four or five production companies are often involved, each with it gaggle of producers. This one lists twelve (actually the only person you’ve ever heard of, Tom Cruise, is uncredited), which is probably not even a record. It was a box office bomb.