Why'd They Have to Make Me Think?

Rating: 8/10 (1 October 1999)

I watched this film the first time with two of my friends on a dare. One of our classmates had challenged us to guess the ending before it was revealed -- a premise which has doubtlessly accompanied many people's reccomendations of this film. So we bit, we rented and we settled in.
About halfway through, one of us had fallen asleep (not me, by the way). It seems the plot hadn't been enough to keep him going, so he politely excused himself and drove home after being woken by a few onscreen gunshots and not knowing or caring where they had come from. My remaining cohort and I were a little more interested in the goings-on, but not by much. The thriller, as it was billed, wasn't that thrilling after all.
Then the twists started twisting. As the plot thickened, I noticed my friend was inching off the sofa and toward the television. Then I noticed I was, too. Suddenly this collection of seemingly unrelated incidents got pretty darn related, and we were outguessing each other for the final ten minutes of the film, in silence, motioning as friends do with that invisible sign language, "It's him! No, it's him!"
Needless to say, the ending paid off, and we popped the rewound video exhilarated. Sure, we'd lost out on the bet, but at least we'd had the fortitude to make it through what turned out to be one of the most compelling films of the nineties. It didn't start out that way, and my primary qualm with the film is that it does take awhile to build up a head of steam, but what a head it ends up with.