Compelling viewing but a wee bit predictable

Rating: Null/10 (25 February 2003)

Perhaps I am hard to please. I thought this was a very good movie, one I enjoyed despite it being a genre that is not really to my taste. It has, however, been lavished with such extreme praise that I feel motivated to calm the debate down a little with my comments.
There is some fine acting; Spacey and Byrne in particular. Pete Postlethwaite is incredibly sinister and quite unlike the stage actor I remember from the late 80's and early 90's when he walked the London boards. The pacing of the movie is good. The use of flashback and forwards had its disorienting moments, but on the whole was very well done.
The camera work is good, although some of the scenes in the dark where you cannot quite work out what is going on are a little too long.
I found the plot a wee bit predictable. It's hard to explain the shortcoming without spoilers; suffice it to say that such a plot is bound to have twists to it and by about half way through the movie it came down to two main possibilities, one of which is explored and eventually discredited, the other turns out to be the main twist.
I'm glad I've seen this movie, would recommend it highly, even, but masterpiece it isn't.