Taut thriller ruined by plot twist

Rating: Null/10 (26 April 2003)

One can't see a movie these days without tripping over some review or buzz along the lines of "this movie has such and such plot twist" and "we won't mention the **surprise**" to the point where you aren't surprised when it actually happens. I don't really know why they do this sometimes, because in previous films like Se7en and The Usual Suspects, the plot twists really make the movie and have you leaving the film saying "whoa".

Until the plot twist, the film is in my mind taut, suspenseful, and gripping. You don't quite know what's going on, there is a really gritty sense of 'film noir' and the dialogue is emotionally charged and intense. It had the kind of tempo that made me thinking this was one of those few movies of late I would buy on DVD.
I don't want to go on and on here, but it just seemed to me that the direction that they took changed the pace, the believability, the intensity and the enjoyment. To add insult to injury, the end of the film has a surprise that is a real stretch of the imagination and left me completely unsatisfied.
One more thing: This is not a 'horror' film. Since when does a "psychological thriller" fall into the category of horror film, which should contain elements of the supernatural. A bad dream isn't a horror, nor is every film in which someone dies.