Don't lose any sleep over it

Rating: Null/10 (28 August 2002)

A pale imitation of a great original which most Americans won't ever bother to check out because it's foreign, there's no one famous in it and they can't be bothered to read subtitles. UK viewers with cable or satellite can occasionally catch the original on Film4, which is where I saw it. It' a dark, menacing film, with a lead character that you empathise with rather than like, and an ending where not everyone gets their comeuppance. The new version...it's as though someone has taken the original and chewed it up until it's soft and mushy to spoon feed it to a baby. If this version had been made first no one would want to remake it. The characters are either easily recognisable cop types or a "Look, it's Robin Williams" type killer. The first twenty minutes of the script is toe-curlingly awful, the dialogue is so banal. The acting is all mediocre, except for Martin Donovan's death scene and a couple of Robin Williams' phone calls. The photography is excellent, but it's used to show how beautiful the landscape is rather than tell the story. Christopher Nolan can make great movies - but this is not one of them. I suspect in five or ten years he will say so himself.