Though the story is essentially routine, and the "surprise" ending is nothing but a bad joke on the audience, you can see what attracted these good actors to the project - it offers them the kind of roles in which good actors can shine, and shine they do. The film is impeccably made - for its time. It was remade in 2000 as "Under Suspicion" and if you only want to see one version of the story (that's all it deserves, really), I recommend the latter one, with Hopkins' up-to-date direction and the more explicit references to plot points that the original could only hint at. The ending, however, still blows. (**1/2)

I firmly believe that the best Oscar ceremony in recent years was in 2003 for two reasons:
1 ) Host Steve Martin was at his most wittiest: " I saw the teamsters help Michael Moore into the trunk of his limo " and " I'll better not mention the gay mafia in case I wake up with a poodle's head in my bed "
2 ) Surprise winners: No one had Adrien Brody down for best actor ( Genuine applause ) or Roman Polanski for best director ( Genuine jeers and boos ) but they won
Last year's award ceremony wasn't too bad but there was little in the way of surprises and I was happy to see RETURN OF THE KING sweep the awards even if it wasn't the best in the trilogy ( FELLOWSHIP was much better )but what let the BBC coverage down was Jonathan Ross getting a few of his sycophantic mates round and pretending they were hilarious when they were anything but . So when I heard Sky were doing the coverage for British TV I was expecting Barry Norman and Mark Kermode to be doing the links , but instead we ended up with Jamie Theakston and Sharon Osbourne ! Oh gawd if British TV are desperate for film critics ( Obviously they are ) I'm sure both Bob The Moo and Theo Robertson will happily fly over to LA to give their honest opinions on the winners and losers
Chris Rock wasn't too bad , but he's no Steve Martin while the location seemed to resemble a sports hall with seats put in ! Not much of a glitzy arena in my opinion . The main problem I had with the ceremony was the format with the " minor " Oscars handed out to the winners who were sitting in their seats ! There's no such thing as a " minor " Oscar and just because the award is for Best Animated Short or Best Costume Design they're as well deserved as Best Picture or Best Director . All the winners should be allowed to march up to the podium . What a bunch of arrogant snobs the Academy are becoming and I quite agree with the comments that this format is disgraceful and if it wasn't for the surprises this could possibly have been the worst ceremony in history . As for the awards themselves
Best Supporting Actress - Cate Blanchett . No great surprise for a competitive category
Best Supporting Actor - Morgan Freeman . No real complaints since Freeman is one of America's greatest living character actors
Best Actor - Jamie Foxx . Most predictable award of the night . Yawn
Best Actress - Hilary Swank . Major surprise since everyone thought Annette Benning was going to win simply down to academy politics but Swank did deserve it and gave the best speech of the night
Best Director - Clint Eastwood . Major surprise since everyone thought Scorsese was going to get the award simply because he'd never won one . Actually I'm glad about this because if he didn't deserve it for TAXI DRIVER , RAGING BULL or GOODFELLAS he didn't deserve it for THE AVIATOR
Best Film - MILLION DOLLAR BABY . Again another major surprise since everyone thought the academy would split the awards for best director and best picture while I thought the Hollywood friendly plot of THE AVIATOR would have made it a dead cert for Best Picture while MDB's controversial subject matter would have turned a lot of voters off
What these awards perhaps illustrate is that this year the voters have decided to ignore Oscar politics and genuinely give out awards to people who deserve it something they haven't done in the past , I mean A BEAUTIFUL MIND beating THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING for gawd's sake ! And long may the academy vote with their heads instead of their hearts