Great concept, overly contrived result

Rating: 8/10 (19 June 2003)

The statistics don't lie - people seem to love this film. I guess they like to be tricked. As for me, I was intrigued the first time around, but the second time (a healthy six years later) I was thoroughly disappointed. Now that this whodunit-thing was out of the way, I discovered the amazing flatness of the characters, existing solely to make the payoff work. The idiotic twists the screenwriter invented to make it look even more complex. Wow. Duh. It reminded me of my advanced math classes: why go through all this stuff when I don't understand how it applies to real life?
Don't get me wrong, I still gave it a 7 - because the concept is good, some of the acting was good, and as an experience it works the first time around. But don't try to analyze it - the triviality of it all will drive you nuts.