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Suspect Zero (2004)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:127
Fresh:22
Rotten:105
Average Rating:4.4/10
Consensus: Other than Ben Kingsley, there's not much to like in this preposterous thriller.
Runtime: 1 hr 39 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: It's 4 AM and torrents of rain pour down on a dusty roadside New Mexico diner. Inside, an innocuous looking salesman sips coffee while catching up on his fishing magazines. After the front door... It's 4 AM and torrents of rain pour down on a dusty roadside New Mexico diner. Inside, an innocuous looking salesman sips coffee while catching up on his fishing magazines. After the front door creaks open, an unusual looking man startles the salesman by sitting down at his table and displaying frightening drawings that send the salesman fleeing for the safety of his car. We meet Agent Thomas Mackelway on his first day of work at the Albuquerque field office of the FBI. Mackelway, wrestling with secrets and demons from his past, is plagues by headaches and feels that he is being watched. And in fact he is... but by whom? Mackelway finds himself mysteriously drawn into a bizarre series of murders: the salesman from the diner found dead in his car on the deserted New Mexico border; a sixth grade teacher from Boulder, Co. discovered in an abandoned vehicle in the diner parking lot; and Mackelay's own personal nemesis, killed while attacking a young girl. Mackelway's former partner, Fran Kulok, who knows Mackelway's deepest secrets, is sent to Albuquerque to assist him on the case. Together, they set out to solve this lethal puzzle. What do these murders have in common? The case becomes increasingly personal as Mackelway's determination turns to obsession. The killer seems to be taunting him, faxing him hundreds of maddening, chilling clues, all of which point to a cunning renegade named Benjamin O'Ryan. Trained in a secret government remote viewing program which enabled five elite agents to get into the hearts and minds of killers and their victims, O'Ryan became consumed with tracking the ultimate manifestation of a killer -- Suspect Zero. -- © Paramount Pictures [More]
Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Ben Kingsley, Carrie-Anne Moss, Harry J. Lennix
Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Ben Kingsley, Carrie-Anne Moss, Harry J. Lennix
Director: E. Elias Merhige
Director: E. Elias Merhige
Screenwriter: Billy Ray, Zak Penn
Producer: Paula Wagner
Composer: Clint Marsell
Studio: Paramount Pictures
Reviews for Suspect Zero
Any decent cinema sleuth will have this sucker solved and filed away long before the film decides to reveal itself.
Moody, earnest and not particularly involving, film oozes with pretension and mediocre performances.**
A grisly, depraved and wholly uninvolving exercise in empty mannerism.
Despite fine performances by Aaron Eckhart and Ben Kingsley, 'Suspect Zero' is a painfully muddled crime thriller.
There are some surprising turns of the story, and Eckhart and Kingsley are watchable performers, but Suspect Zero never escapes the rut of a standard serial-killer whodunit.
It never builds characters to care about or a story that gets much better than its tricky, paranormal premise.
A plodding and familiar 'cop sees what the killer sees' riff that plays like a poorly inflated The X-Files episode.
Dramatically, Zero is a fiasco, recklessly bouncing around logic and coherence like a pinball.
As usual in these movies, the bad guy has all the fun -- for which we should all be grateful. Because without him, Suspect Zero would add up to less than zero indeed.
Suspect Zero is not the crime drama of the ages, but it's certainly no zero. It's worth a look.
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