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Bobby Whitman: Eion Bailey
Vince Sherman: Clifton Collins Jr.
Rafe Perry: Will Kemp
Jake Harris: Val Kilmer
Lucas Harper: Jonny Lee Miller
Sara Moore: Kathryn Morris
J.D. Reston: Christian Slater
Gabe Jensen: LL Cool J
Nicole Willis: Patricia Velasquez
Dimension Films are both a blessing and a curse to the world of Genre Cinema.,
An offshoot of Miramax Films they handle the distribution of the sci-fi,
fantasy and horror films that the Oscar-chasing parent company doesn't really
care to have on its books. It is a blessing as it has produced some of the
most notable genre films of recent years, including the
Scream series,
Below and Equilibrium. It is a curse because it often has so
little belief in its own films (and their intended audiences) that it routinely
shelves and buries them.
The latest movie to befall the curse of Dimension is Mindhunters,
a film that has languished in their vault for around 2 years (it was also
certified as a 15 by the BBFC in March 2004) and will finally be receiving a
belated US theatrical release in May of this year (2005), and a UK release in
June. Fortunately, those who look a little further afield can now import this
film, on a perfectly legitimate Thai disc, for their own home perusal.
The premise of Mindhunters is that a group of FBI recruits are left alone on a
deserted island as the final part of their 'Psychological Profiler' training.
On this island is a training facility that is used by most law enforcement and
military services. Whilst there they will find a staged murder scene and, from
the evidence they gather, they are supposed to work the case and develop a
viable profile of the killer in two days (one of the bits of info given in the
film is that any murder that's not solved within 48 hours is unlikely to be
solved at all).
Unfortunately for them, also on the island is a real-life and brilliant serial
killer who duly starts to pick the recruits off one by one in increasingly
imaginative ways. As such, the developing of a viable profile is no longer an
exercise, and the cost of failing to do this is their lives.
"Hey Chris, remember when Tony Scott used to call... Heh, heh, heh!"
Directed by the resolutely mainstream Renny Harlin, Mindhunters pretty
much defines trash cinema but it is guiltily entertaining for the majority of
its duration. From the off it is apparent that it's meant to serve as nothing
more than 100 minutes of disposable cinema, engineered to give audiences a few
scares, some gore and a couple of decent set-pieces. In these regards it is a
complete success. Some of the set pieces presented in the film are very good
and are excitingly put together; the chief of these is where a character has to
climb across a corridor full of electrified water. Such moments can’t help
but bring back warm fuzzy memories of a previous Harlin movie,
Cliffhanger.
There are also one or two genuinely good moments in the movie that come as
somewhat of a surprise, and also serve as an indication of what the movie
could have been had this tone been consistently maintained. One such moment is
when the first victim amongst the group gets taken. This sequence is done in
such a pitch perfect, and grandiose, manner that the disbelief felt by the
group as they watch the death is mirrored by that of the audience. It probably
helps that the manner of the victim’s demise is gloriously OTT as, indeed, are
the deaths of the majority of the characters (some almost matching
Final Destination 2
in both their gruesomeness and inventiveness).
Sadly it’s not all ‘good news. The jumps and shocks are mainly of the cheap
variety rather than those built through creating tension and a sustained atmosphere
of dread. These may be good enough to get a jump out of the undemanding (presumably
late-teen) audience that this movie is aimed at, but I suspect that most other
people will remain unmoved.
The movie also collapses under the weight of its own contrivances in the final
act. When it comes down to the final few remaining characters the movie tries
anything it can to wrong-foot the audience and keep the identity of the killer
a secret. Sadly, this includes people spouting really suspicious ‘asides’ and
acting unnaturally shifty and out of character.
Mindhunters is also one of the movies that has had its ending dictated through
the use of ‘Test Audiences’ rather than through a clear vision by the screenwriter
or director. It seems that multiple endings were filmed and the one that proved
most popular with audiences was the one that they went with. Whilst I’m not
sure how extensive these endings were, the one that they chose to go with is
pretty ludicrous, containing an extended martial arts fight out of nowhere,
guns that fire underwater and what obviously should have been a fatal wound
being casually shrugged off.
"Argh... Stinking puzzle box!!!"
Renny Harlin has managed to cobble together a cast that is lacking in real stars
but contains a good few character actors that are (to be honest) above this type
of material, but have just been lacking the hits of late. The performances given
by the cast vary from rather poor to just above average, none of them seem to
play above the level of the material (keeping their tongues firmly in their cheeks
about the whole affair).
Although the cover art pretty heavily pimps Val Kilmer’s appearance in the
movie, he's not really in it that much. His role ultimately amounts to little
more than an extended cameo, but even from that it's pretty obvious that his
heart's not really in it. He plays his role as a caricature rather than an
actual character, which is doubly disappointing given his recent solid work in
such movies as The Salton Sea and Spartan.
Mindhunters marks Christian Slater's second movie with Kilmer, (The
first being Kilmer's half-onscreen performance as Elvis in Tony Scott's True
Romance, fact fans). Slater's performance here is yet another one of the
notches marking his downward slide into obscurity. I've generally got a lot of
time for the guy (having grown up on his movies like Heathers and Pump Up
The Volume) and having seen him once giving rather solid performances films
movies like Murder In The First, it's sad to see him obviously slumming
in trash like this, and working on his famed 'Nicholson-lite Autopilot'. All I
can say for Slater now, is that with both Mindhunters and Alone In
The Dark on his CV this year alone, it seems it’s time for him to find a
new agent.
LL Cool J once again plays, well, his amiable enough self essentially.
If you've seen his performances in S.W.A.T. or his first movie with Harlin,
(the equally trashy and enjoyable) Deep Blue Sea, then you'll pretty
much know what to expect from him here. Let's face it though, who doesn't like
LL Cool J in a movie? The usually reliable Clifton Collins Jr.
(Tigerland,
Traffic), here, turns in his worst performance ever as a wheelchair-bound
and semi-paranoid gun nut. His over the top surliness becomes increasingly grating
as the movie goes on.
Jonny Lee Miller rehashes his ropey American accent from Hackers
as Lucas Harper, the fearless wannabe leader of the group who has a crush on
one of his colleagues. Eion Bailey (Band of Brothers) makes
absolutely no impact on the viewer whatsoever and may as well not be in it.
Patricia Velasquez
(The Mummy
and
The Mummy Returns)
starts off very much as a bland background character but as she gradually
becomes more of a central character one comes to realise how bad her somewhat
hysterical performance actually is. Finally we come to the token Brit played by
Will Kemp (Van Helsing) who demonstrates here why (probably) he was
replaced by an unconvincing CGI werewolf for the greater part of Stephen Sommers'
cack-fest!
The only cast member who puts in a performance of any real regard is Kathryn
Morris
(Minority Report,
TV's Cold Case) who shows the material much more respect than it
actually deserves. As the Sara Moore character gradually comes to take centre
stage the scriptwriters give her more to work with than the rest of the cast,
so in effect, she manages to create a more fully fleshed out character.
The script by Wayne Kramer and Kevin Brodbin (along with un-credited doctoring
work by Ehren
'Arlington Road'
Kruger) is something of an odd mix. Later revelation of the killer’s
methodology means that the characters of the group members have to hold true
over the course of the movie and, in this regard, the film works (for the most
part). This is not to go so far as to say that many of the group are developed
beyond what LL Cool J’s character defines as “surface”, as they are not. There
is, however, enough to ensure that the films own internal ‘logic’ holds true
enough and that suspension of disbelief can be maintained.
The script’s explanation of one of the movie’s major contrivances, and central
hook (that this training takes place on a spooky and abandoned island), is rather
hard to swallow. When one of the characters brings this up, it is explained
away with cod psychology and they are advised that they are "Isolated, alone
and forgotten. That’s what it’s like to be in the mind of a sociopath."
Oh, alright then??? Still, if you’re unable to get past such contrivances then
you’re really watching the wrong movie! Another problem with the script is that
some of the dialogue is genuinely atrocious. You can’t help but feel bad for
the actor’s when they’re forced to seriously spout lines such as "Now is not
the time for fear, people!" It also relies a little too heavily on needless
one-liners, particularly ones that aren’t funny and serve no purpose other
than to given an actor a ‘cool’ line to say. This is none more apparent in the
film’s final act when the killer is revealed and subsequently becomes a 'dire'logue
spouting maniac.
Throughout his whole career, I don't think that Renny Harlin has made anything
but disposable trash, even what is arguably his best movie, Die Hard 2: Die
Harder, is the weakest entry in that series, with the high gloss sheen
lacking the grittier edge of John McTiernan's two films. Harlin's stylish
visuals are probably Mindhunters' strongest points. He works hard to keep the
camera moving and makes use of quick cuts and flashes to inject a nice sense of
energy and life into the proceedings.
Given the subject of the film and the abandoned setting, the movie is appropriately
dark, but not in the same gritty, grimy way as
Se7en
and Millennium, it has a more mainstream and stylised look, shot through
with cold blue hues. If I had to say that there were influences on the visuals
here I would point more towards recent TV police procedural programs such as
CSI and Cold Case. Indeed, during one particular sequence when
the crew start to use forensics in order to unmask the killer, one can’t
help but be reminded of CSI. Mindhunters is reported to have had a modest
budget by Hollywood standards, however the visuals certainly don't give this away.
To sum up, the opening 5-10 minutes of this film are an elaborate hoax that you
will either accept, or will have you shaking your head in utter disgust at the
ludicrousness of it all. Neither response is right or wrong but which one it
evokes will give you some indication as to whether or not the remaining 90-odd
minutes are for you. This film is trash, but much like most other Renny Harlin
films it doesn’t really aspire to be anything more than that, and just concentrates
on being solid disposable entertainment. In this aim it succeeds with style, but
the results certainly won't be to everyone’s taste.
Finally, a DVD's explosive extra features lived up to their name...
This Thai disc is in PAL format (the same as the UK) and the film is presented
in Anamorphic Widescreen at approximately the 1:78:1 (16:9) aspect ratio. The
presentation is good by Thai standards, but it can’t really match the best
work from more established DVD manufacturers, and as such, is a bit of a mixed
bag.
For what is, essentially, a pretty dark film the black level is important, and
I’m happy to report that the blacks on display are absolutely rock solid,
there is no greying of any kind. Tempering this good point somewhat is the
lack of any real shadow detail on display, which means that on more than one
occasion it is quite difficult to make out what is going on. The picture overall
is slightly soft, exhibiting a lack of fine detail, thankfully though the encoders
have not tried to counter this through the over-use of edge enhancement, as I
found very few intrusive examples of this.
The colours on display alternate between quite strong and rather washed out
(although I suspect occurrences of the latter might be a stylistic choice), I
did notice instances of colours bleeding into one another quite frequently
though. Going back to the washed out colours, it is also fair to say that the
skin tones are also rather unnatural, and the overall picture quality has an
overly processed look to it, which is somewhat hard to describe. Without
having seen this movie theatrically it is difficult to say whether this ‘look’
is intentional or not, so I’ll reserve judgement. On a final note I’ll say that
the print used was spotless, I noticed no instances of any kind of print damage,
which is to be expected given that this is such a recent movie.
The sound is available in two flavours, Dolby Digital 5.1 in both English and
Thai, and for the purposes of this review I listened to the original English
track. All in all for such a stylish movie that relies on sound to engineer
its cheap jumps, the sound mix on this disc is somewhat subdued. Dialogue is
always clear but the mix is engineered so that most of the sound comes from the
front speakers; the rear surrounds barely get a look in. Indeed the only time
they made a peep was nearing the end of the movie when there is a bit of a
running gun battle. At this point the mix was actually quite active and involving,
it’s just a shame the rest of it was not so. There is also a bit of a problem
on the soundtrack at the 1:27:49 mark, the sound goes dull and muffled for
about a minute or so, it's not too bad but it does prove quite distracting at a
rather important point in the movie.
The extra features on the disc only extend so far as to trailers. We get the
theatrical trailer for Mindhunters (2:17) which is presented in Non-Anamorphic
Widescreen at approximately 1:78:1 and contains fixed Thai subtitles.
The rest of the trailers are for the company's other releases, we have those
for the reportedly 'ho-hum' Korean actioner Tube, Michael Moore's anti-Bush
polemic Farenheit 9/11 (2:12), and finally the ace Korean martial-arts
movie Arahan (2:11). All the trailers are presented in Non-Anamorphic
widescreen at approximately 1:78:1 (except for Tube which is at 2:35:1) and
Arahan's also features burnt-in Thai subtitles.
Mindhunters is never going to win any awards (except for perhaps 2006's
Razzies) with it's credibility breaking story and ropey acting, however, it
does manage to be an entertaining way to spend 100 minutes. If you approach it
from this respect then you should be able to derive some enjoyment out of it.
If, however, you are looking for deeper insight into the role of psychological
profilers in the FBI, then walk away. Now. This film is not for you!
The treatment it's received on DVD is acceptable enough for the price. The
picture is more than acceptable, if perhaps a little soft, and the soundtrack,
whilst not very dynamic, gets the job done (despite a flaw or two). The lack
of any extras, beyond trailers, is the only real letdown to be found here. An
added bonus is, with the disc being both PAL and Region Free, it is easily
playable on even the most basic of home-cinema set-ups. However, when you
consider that this disc can be had for around £4 delivered, and is
legitimately available months before both the predicted UK and US theatrical
release dates, it represents somewhat of a bargain, if you think you'll enjoy
this film!
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Accept
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
