A Well made film that was the victim of poor marketing.

Rating: Null/10 (26 February 2003)

I think this is a brilliant film. There is a constant moral struggle going on involving the classic Rhetorical question, "Do the ends justify the means?" This question is pondered by all the characters in the film, but non-more so than Will Dormer(Pacino). He is forced into working with Walter FInch(Williams) because he knows something. He knows that if the information gets out about the killing that his credibility is lost so he eventually gets lost in a never ending spiral that leads to the tragic conclusion.
The complaint most people have is that this was marketed as an edge of your seat thriller so that is what they were expecting and when it wasn't delivered they felt betrayed like the film itself let them down. Mainly because the majority of the film is Dormer going through a process of personal contemplation. Though I understand why most people would complain about this film they don't want to watch a film that provokes thought on personal ethics and moral ambiguity they would rather sit back and watch Tobey Maguire look cool climbing walls and shooting webbing out of his wrists, but oh well. As H.L. Mankin(I think that's how his name is spelled) once said, "Noone ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."