Thin gruel

Rating: Null/10 (19 June 2008)

*Spoilers ahead* In spite of a committed and interesting performance from Christian Bale, and striking cinemaphotography, this was poor stuff. The premise - man haunted by a figure representing his own guilt - is familiar fare. Not a necessarily a bad thing, because a familiar premise can mean that the film contains a powerful idea worth re-exploring, but I feel the director and/or writer made a bad choice by trying to make the central character's predicament a mystery.
It might have made a well-shot, well acted, and even moving mood piece about the impact of guilt and the importance of atonement if we'd been shown the reason for Bale's guilt upfront (cf. Crime and Punishment, and the numerous other spurious Dostoyevsky references that littered the film in a sixth form attempt to make it appear 'more cleverer' than it actually was), but the forced and unconvincing attempt to warp the story into a suspenseful mystery made it seem like a grossly overstretched episode of the Twilight Zone. And I like The Twilight Zone.
By halfway point, Bale's character was completing the word of the hangman game on his fridge with M O T H E R, and I was silently screaming 'no, it's K I L L E R, and that's you, f*ckwit' and wishing I could fast-forward.
Shame.