A View to the Nil
Ben Kingsley (Gandhi) was the impetus for seeing Suspect Zero, a gruesome picture billed as a thriller. It is less a story than a series of images involving a troubled FBI agent (Aaron Eckhart), his ex-girlfriend and partner (Carrie-Anne Moss) and a supernatural psychopath (played by Mr. Kingsley).
While investigating several murders and missing children, Eckhart's agent gets flashes of an emerging telepathic ability and the Kingsley character goes bonkers crunching numbers and visualizing horrific crimes. They both appear to be experiencing some unexplained nonsense called remote viewing, which permits the viewer to perceive what happens beyond his perception. Is that possible? What causes it? Who acquires the supernatural powers and how does it work? Don't bother to use logic—as the movie's mystical mantra implores: "Don't think." It's chaos with a camera.
If Suspect Zero had a theme, it would be epistemological—that how you know what you know is a blend of pain, emotions and supernatural revelation. Between close-ups of corpses with eyelids cut off, children vanish, serial killers rape, Eckhart's agent gets a headache—and so will anyone trying to make sense of this movie.
Copying the most malevolent movies—The Ring's television static—The Sixth Sense's lifelessness—Se7en's depravity—and Steven Spielberg's horror truck flick, Duel—Suspect Zero bundles them into the perfect picture of nihilism. This zero-worshipping movie is like watching a Hollywood-budget hallucination with Ben Kingsley in a leading role and nothing to show for it.
While investigating several murders and missing children, Eckhart's agent gets flashes of an emerging telepathic ability and the Kingsley character goes bonkers crunching numbers and visualizing horrific crimes. They both appear to be experiencing some unexplained nonsense called remote viewing, which permits the viewer to perceive what happens beyond his perception. Is that possible? What causes it? Who acquires the supernatural powers and how does it work? Don't bother to use logic—as the movie's mystical mantra implores: "Don't think." It's chaos with a camera.
If Suspect Zero had a theme, it would be epistemological—that how you know what you know is a blend of pain, emotions and supernatural revelation. Between close-ups of corpses with eyelids cut off, children vanish, serial killers rape, Eckhart's agent gets a headache—and so will anyone trying to make sense of this movie.
Copying the most malevolent movies—The Ring's television static—The Sixth Sense's lifelessness—Se7en's depravity—and Steven Spielberg's horror truck flick, Duel—Suspect Zero bundles them into the perfect picture of nihilism. This zero-worshipping movie is like watching a Hollywood-budget hallucination with Ben Kingsley in a leading role and nothing to show for it.
