Bleak as a winter in the hinterlands of Alaska ...

Rating: Null/10 (30 May 2002)

SPOILER ALERT It's astounding to me that the rabble actually gave this depressing, overlong, no-one-to-root-for "thriller" an overall rating of 8.1.
Admittedly, I'm generally not much of a fan of Robin Williams, and yet I give him kudos for taking on this role. And he plays it well. The inextricable link between his character and that of Al Pacino is mildly interesting, yet lacks real tension. Why? Because (mild spoiler here):
Al Pacino, the film's alleged good guy, is in reality a bad guy!
Not only is he under heavy I.A. investigation for alleged misdeeds as a detective for the L.A.P.D., he establishes midway through the movie that he's an utter reprobate by covering up the accidental killing of his partner -- or was it an accident? Thus, we spend basically the entire second half of the movie loathing both he and Robin Williams, perhaps even more so Pacino's self-destructing, overwhelmingly depressing character. Going in, I was aware that this would be a dark character study, but phrasing it that way is the understatement of the year.
In the end, we get what we have already figured out we must have: the death of both the protagonist and the antagonist. Yet this isn't cathartic, nor poignant, nor any type of neo-self actualization -- it's just bleak, any way you slice it. And that sums up this movie pretty accurately.
5 out of 10 for decent acting and some nice cinematography.