Not as good as it thinks it is

Rating: 3/10 (26 February 2006)

It's a mystery to me how Mr McGuigan managed to take a top-notch cast and an interesting premise, and create a tedious, endlessly meandering, mish mash of a film.
Kingsley and Freeman gave solid performances considering the quality of dialogue they were given to work with. Bruce Willis did a decent Bruce Willis; Josh Hartnett played Josh Hartnett well; and Lucy Liu was stretched to play Lucy Liu.
The 'reveal' part of the film was the biggest let down. I understand many viewers like to have plot twists revealed and then explained, but this took babying the viewer to the extreme. Every minuscule detail was explained by way of flashback. I was half expecting to have it revealed that the characters were actually only actors, and nobody actually died in real life.
It's only saving grace was some stylish cinematography from the always reliable Peter Sova.
Disappointing.