A mysterious serial killer is hunting other serial killers - and one FBI agent suspects there may be more to the vigilante than they imagine. [TRAILER]

STEVEN SNYDER'S REVIEW

“Suspect Zero” is much better once it decides what kind of thriller it wants to be.

It’s a film of mistaken identity, wrapped up in a formula it fights constantly to defy. Knowing now how the story ends, its beginning feels that much more peculiar, and pouring back over director E. Elias Merhige’s (“Shadow of the Vampire”) decisions, one senses either an incompetent filmmaker incapable of finding the story’s center, or a defiant director who finally succeeds in elevating his material.

If one was to leave “Zero” halfway through, it would resonate as little more than a traditional serial killer film, with hints of “Seven,” “Silence of the Lambs” and “The Cell” to be found in every direction.

After all, there’s not just police, but the FBI. There’s not just a normal FBI agent, but Thomas Mackelway (Aaron Eckhart), a disowned and disgraced agent who broke procedure to bring an evil man to justice. There’s not just a partner, but Fran Kulok (Carrie-Anne Moss), an apparent ex-lover and professional competitor who has also been shipped from her former post in Dallas to New Mexico for reasons unknown.

Naturally, there is not just a crazy serial killer, but an omnipotent force of evil, played by Ben Kingsley, whose sole mission seems to be to kill young victims and taunt Mackelway with blurry drawings, cryptic images, and non-sensical communications.

And walking out of the movie at that point, as many will be inclined to do, this person’s analysis would be correct. Except for Mackelway’s bizarre pill popping, and this serial killer’s strange ability to mentally channel Mackelway and see him during his investigation, this is a tired, true-blue serial killer thriller.

But then things get more interesting.

Just as “Zero’s” beginning has denied us a coherent puzzle, hiding the very clues that would have helped us dive into the story, the transparency of the characters and their story becomes a bit more clouded and in a matter of minutes the tables are turned.

Mackelway ceases being the strong investigator, but rather becomes the confused, bewildered and powerless follower of the clues, convinced that he has been wrong about everything from the start. Kulok is no longer the stereotypical woman to fear, but becomes Mackelway’s only source of comfort and solace, not exactly believing what he believes, but empathetic about the fact that he believes passionately.

And finally, when the movie stops flashing to red images of crime scenes, and the camera backs off from close-ups of murder weapons, shoes and eyes, we are given Ben Kingsley in all his glory - the actor of such poise and respect who, in “Zero,” finally breaks down under the weight of knowledge he does not seek and decisions he dreads having to make.

I love movies that do not end with a bang but a whimper, and by the time the provocative climax unfurls in “Zero,” the promise of an action sequence or gruesome discovery has been replaced by the more engaging spin of a character study and, in a twist of the supernatural, questions of fate and predetermination. The movie changes direction, steering away from the formula of the plot and towards the intricacies of its characters.

Odds are that Merhige prefers the second half of his film too. Perhaps that is why he stops earlier scenes dead in their tracks to give us the shocking, colorless perspective of an all-seeing entity that resembles the washed-out reality of the film’s final moments. And there are other scenes of emotion and conviction, such as when Mackelway reaches out to Kulok, that are incomprehensible within the context of the story but are moving in a detached, self-contained sort of way.

I’d like to think these are Merhige’s little asides and winks at the audience during the lengthy wait for the real story; calculated rebellions from a filmmaker who still needed the paycheck.

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