Review: Suspect Zero

Serial killer film flops are a dime a dozen, and Suspect Zero is worth slightly less than a penny.

Suspect Zero
Photo: Paramount Pictures

Serial killer films are a dime a dozen, and Suspect Zero—a supernatural-tinged rehash of countless superior thrillers—is worth slightly less than a penny. Dishonored F.B.I. agent Thomas Mackelway (Aaron Eckhart), having been demoted to the crook-catching “minors” in Albuquerque, is assigned to investigate the murder of a traveling salesman which, upon inspection (and thanks to a series of helpful faxes sent by the culprit) seems to have been committed by a former federal agent named Benjamin O’Ryan (Ben Kingsley).

The mysterious, nomadic O’Ryan had been part of a government experiment in “remote viewing,” an extrasensory power that allowed individuals to psychically watch serial killers go about their daily business and then sketch the scenes in frantic charcoal sketches. Also, it appears that O’Ryan may now be hunting serial killers in search of a “suspect zero”—that is, a mythic, undetectable murderer who travels the country killing hundreds.

Even excusing this employment of paranormal gibberish to embellish its police procedural narrative—and given its ridiculousness, that’s not an easy task—Suspect Zero’s script is an embarrassing example of narrative and stylistic larceny. The diminutive, clairvoyant O’Ryan is a hybrid of J. Lo’s super-psychiatrist from The Cell and Anthony Hopkins’s Hannibal Lecter; Eckhart’s headache-plagued Mackelway recalls James Spader’s psychologically screwed-up cop from The Watcher; and the connection shared between the film’s sleuth and criminal (Mackelway, it seems, also has remote-viewing abilities) is the hoariest of serial killer clichés.

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More distressing, however, is the way in which director E. Elias Merhige, who respectfully and accurately recreated Nosferatu’s dank, silent creepiness in the atmospheric Shadow of the Vampire, resorts to visually mimicking David Fincher’s Se7en whenever the opportunity arises (and, unfortunately, it arises often). The notion of a suspect zero crisscrossing Middle America without restraint is potentially terrifying, but the film can’t let go of the contrived bond shared between Mackelway and O’Ryan, the latter of whom preposterously wants to transform his remote-viewing pursuer into his doppelganger vigilante successor. As the regrettable case of Suspect Zero proves, uninspired imitation is the lowest form of thriller filmmaking.

Score: 
 Cast: Aaron Eckhart, Ben Kingsley, Carrie-Anne Moss, Harry J. Lennix, Kevin Chamberlin, Julian Reyes, Keith Campbell  Director: E. Elias Merhige  Screenwriter: Zak Penn, Billy Ray  Distributor: Paramount Pictures  Running Time: 99 min  Rating: R  Year: 2004  Buy: Video

Nick Schager

Nick Schager is the entertainment critic for The Daily Beast. His work has also appeared in Variety, Esquire, The Village Voice, and other publications.

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