This movie was recommended by a friend as a psychological thriller and it is clearly what it attempted to be. However, while having a weird enough story, it was never clear enough, nor did it provide a way to really understand any of the characters. Some of the obvious points that the characters missed also damaged the feel of the film.
What it is about: a detective is haunted by the last case he worked on, a serial killer case that he probably solved, since killing the only suspect in self defence stopped the killings. And now a copy cat appears, just as annoyingly pretending to be an artist while killing people and having an unhealthy obsession with our detective. But it he really only a copy cat?
A very good cast should have provided more entertainment in this film. The detective is Willem Dafoe, his art friend is Peter Stormare, the wannabe rookie is Scott Speedman, James Rebhorn is somewhere around and both Clea DuVall and Amy Carlson have ridiculously small roles. Extra points to who recognises the detective's neighbour, reduced to 30 second roles in obscure movies.
As such, the script looked similar to Se7en, a much better movie from 12 years before. Dafoe's character was obscure and hard to empathise with and any other role was minimal, including the one of the killer. The relation to anamorphism is interesting, but not challenging in any way: you get better from the Wikipedia article than from the film. This movie failed.
What it is about: a detective is haunted by the last case he worked on, a serial killer case that he probably solved, since killing the only suspect in self defence stopped the killings. And now a copy cat appears, just as annoyingly pretending to be an artist while killing people and having an unhealthy obsession with our detective. But it he really only a copy cat?
A very good cast should have provided more entertainment in this film. The detective is Willem Dafoe, his art friend is Peter Stormare, the wannabe rookie is Scott Speedman, James Rebhorn is somewhere around and both Clea DuVall and Amy Carlson have ridiculously small roles. Extra points to who recognises the detective's neighbour, reduced to 30 second roles in obscure movies.
As such, the script looked similar to Se7en, a much better movie from 12 years before. Dafoe's character was obscure and hard to empathise with and any other role was minimal, including the one of the killer. The relation to anamorphism is interesting, but not challenging in any way: you get better from the Wikipedia article than from the film. This movie failed.