Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on August 27, 2004, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
Wanna see something really scary? Check out the epic-length quote-whoring committed by king of quote whores Earl Dittman on the ads for Paramount’s Suspect Zero. Does anyone really believe potential audiences will swallow this stuff? Just for the record, let me say that in my own humble opinion, Suspect Zero is not “A Chilling, Haunting, Nail-Biting Whodunit Filled With One Shocking, Jaw-Dropping Plot Twist After Another!” For one thing, it’s not a whodunit, because we know from the beginning who’s doing it: Benjamin O’Ryan (Ben Kingsley), a silky-voiced malefactor first seen subtly threatening his latest quarry with psychological insinuations and the hint of a British accent. In other words, it’s very Silence of the Lambs, and for all the talented people involved, Suspect Zero never falls far from the shadow of all the serial-killer movies that have come before.
It’s pretty much all here: the tormented hero who has to prove himself (Aaron Eckhart as FBI agent Thomas Mackelway), the madman who plays cryptic mind games with him, the discoveries of unusually mutilated dead bodies (substituting for actual murder scenes, allowing this type of film to be billed as a thriller rather than a horror feature), flashlight-enhanced tours of grotty crime scenes and lairs, etc. Director E. Elias Merhige, who so effectively evoked old-school moviemaking in Shadow of the Vampire, here seems to be attempting a too-soon homage to the Serial Killer Style, circa 1990-2000, and while his work is technically proficient and results in a good shiver every now and then, it doesn’t have much in the way of its own personality.
The one compelling element in the script by Zak Penn and Billy Ray is O’Ryan himself, once the method behind his madness is revealed in the third act. His own motivations lead him into a twisted, teasing relationship with Mackelway, which is supposed to add an extra level of tension but in this case, as often happens in such stories, leads one to ask why O’Ryan doesn’t just come clean to Mackelway from the beginning. Perhaps to distract from this question, the filmmakers throw in a female agent, Fran Kulok (Carrie-Anne Moss), who just happens to be Mackelway’s former partner and lover, to assist him, which leads one to ask why her superiors thought it would be a good idea to reteam the two. It’s a thankless role for the talented Moss, though at least Fran doesn’t serve as an easy villain’s hostage in the third act.
Eckhart and Kingsley have more to work with; the former is convincing even if the role isn’t terribly surprising, and Kingsley makes his tormented tormentor into a persuasive portrait of madness seeking redemption. Perhaps I should put a SPOILER ALERT here, but it’s not really giving away too much to reveal that O’Ryan isn’t the true villain of the piece, but rather a man consumed with his own twisted mission of justice, one whose ultimate goal is to stop the deadly spree of the titular Suspect Zero. The phrase refers to a killer who operates with no discernible pattern and leaves no consistent evidence, which leads one to ask why the filmmakers present him as regularly following the same m.o. and leaving behind the same detectable clues.
In that sense, Suspect Zero is rather like Suspect Zero: those involved may think it’s different, but it follows a familiar pattern. The movie has had a high level of craft applied to it, from the dread-soaked cinematography by veteran Michael Chapman to the eerie score by up-and-comer/Darren Aronofsky collaborator Clint Mansell. Yet all the top-flight technical ingredients ultimately can’t help the well-worn narrative parts congeal into a satisfying whole.
