Over-hyped rubbish.

Rating: 2/10 (28 June 2006)

This film is a total triumph for style over substance. Characters that you don't care about get caught up in a fairly ludicrous set of circumstances and the ending is telegraphed from early on. The icing on the cake is when a potentially more interesting detective movie/police procedural is suddenly ruined by the confession of one of the minor characters in the film that he is the killer. His drawn out speeches about his reasons for committing the crimes come across as unnatural and forced and the whole movie descends into farce with the courier company (nice product placement) delivery of the severed head of a character so underwritten that her input to the scene remains the same as when her head was still attached. Why so many people like this superficially dark but ultimately very mainstream thriller is beyond me. Sure, Morgan Freeman delivers another solid performance and Spacey is good even if his performance (much like Jack Nicholson's turn as the Joker in Batman) belongs in a different movie to the drab, underplayed, naturalistic tone that all the other actors seem to be opting for. Pitt is guilty of phoning in his performance to a large extent and Paltrow wrestles manfully with a sketchy part but can't make any serious impression. A puff piece.