Stylish but flawed

Rating: 6/10 (22 September 1998)

Stylishly directed by David Fincher in a very convincing modern-day film noir mode. Plot is genuinely intriguing but takes a long time to gain any momentum at all. Ending is a real let-down particularly when an obvious window was there for a more intriguing and intelligent conclusion, although I suspect that popular tastes are the cause of this problem. Penn and Unger are good but Douglas as the lead character gives a rather lackluster performance that could easily have been put together from bytes from his other films.