Aaron Eckhart as Thomas Mackelway
Ben Kingsley as Benjamin O’Ryan
Carrie-Anne Moss as Fran Kulok
Harry J. Lennix as Rich Charleton
Kevin Chamberlin as Harold Speck
Julian Reyes as Highway Patrolman
Keith Campbell as Raymond Starkey
Chloe Russell as Loretta
Ellen Blake as Dolly
William B. Johnson as Mel
Jerry Gardner as Sheriff Harry Dylan
Curtis Plagge as Jumbo
Nicole DeHuff as Katie Potter
William Mapother as Bill Grieves
Brady Coleman as Dyson
Critique:
After a huge scandal, star FBI agent Thomas Mackelway (Aaron Eckhart) is transfered to the “Minor Leagues”, the Albuquerque field office. A series of bizarre murders, with lead suspect Benjamin O’Ryan (Ben Kingsley) faxing information directly to Mackelway, result in the
FBI sending Mackelway’s former partner, agent Fran Kulok (Carrie-Anne Moss), to assist and monitor him.
Eckhart does a good job pushing the overly slow pace of the film along, while Carrie-Anne Moss does as well as she can in a virtually useless role. However, Ben Kingsley commands the screen when he is on it and provides much needed energy. The rest of the cast are pretty much bystanders and little is done with them, so their fairly wooden performances pretty much go unnoticed.
The cinematography is top notch. Much time was spent making Suspect Zero a visually dark movie, with many of the images being black
and white outline sketches of crime scenes. This sets an overall foreboding tone to the movie that the score by Clint Mansell accentuates very well.
Zak Penn crafted a very good screenplay that required the dark feel that the cinematography provided. He put in a couple of interesting twists to the mass murderer genre, allowing the film to build a lot of suspense, but most of that is wasted on the ponderous pace. Director Elias Merhige spent so much time filling every inch of
the movie with something stimulating to the eyes that he forgot to move the story along.
Who should see this movie? Fans of dark thrillers will be treated to a good plot with some decent acting. If you are looking for action or romance, you will need to go someplace else since there is almost none of either, and no comedy at all. If you are looking for good eye candy, there are many visually stimulating images, but they are mostly dark and gruesome. Overall, Suspect Zero is a movie in need of a pace car. If you are willing to sit through to the end, you will have seen a good story. However, not everyone will be happy waiting for that story to unfold.
