Flawed

Rating: 7/10 (26 January 2002)

I thought this was a decent movie. I did not think it was the great movie that many who left comments rave about. Here is why:
(some spoilers, nothing big/about the end:)
Why were city detectives handling this very serious case by themselves? Where was the FBI? Where were the psychologists and the profilers? At least, why weren't these detectives trained in how to deal with this killer on a psychological level and what kind of man they were looking for -- ie, what he would look like, the kind of place he would live, etc.? BASIC profiling skills.
Killers often return to the crime scene after the killing. The detectives could have caught this killer early in the film. But I guess there wouldn't have been much of a movie if they were educated enough to know what they were doing . . .
Read a few books on serial killers and you will know more than these two detectives did.
Serial killers are methodical and patient, as the Morgan Freeman character states. Therefore, it does not make sense that this killer who started this killing a YEAR before the detectives knew what he was up to would skip "wrath" entirely. Victim number #6 (I won't mention because I don't want to spoil it) did nothing wrong. The killer goes on in the back-of-the-car scene that his victims weren't innocent --- blah blah blah -- but what about #6!! #6 was innocent.
What did Morgan Freeman learn from all his reading and study at the library? It did not help him at all with catching this guy or stopping his killing.
When Brad Pitt saw that the killer had taken a picture of him (Brad Pitt), why didn't he worry that the guy might be interested in him or his life?
Morgan Freeman found the killer through that list of the people who checked out relevant library books. Why couldn't the killer have sat in the library and read the books? What if the killer BOUGHT the books at a store? He was independently wealthy, why did he need to check books out for two weeks when he could own them permanently? Bought them with some of that stash of cash he had under his bed. No records left behind. No trail. He went through the trouble to cut off his fingertips, but didn't go to a bookstore?
The biggest disappointment for me was waiting through the whole film to see the detectives do something wise or brilliant or meaningful or assertive to get this case solved and have the killer fall right into their laps. The killer was dynamic. The detectives were limp noodles.