We meet a beat cop named Amelia Donaghy (Angelina Jolie). She is the first on the scene of a gruesome murder: a man buried in gravel, with only his hand showing. One finger is amputated; on its stump is his wife's wedding ring. We know right away that the killer is a contestant in the ever-escalating Hollywood Serial Killer sweepstakes, in which villains don't simply kill, but spend the time and patience of a set decorator on arranging the crime scene. No six Agatha Christie mysteries contain as many clues, each one lovingly placed by hand, as this guy leaves.
Some of them are very, very easy to miss, consisting of microscopic bits of paper about the size of THIS word, which, when pieced together by the two cops, lead to a used bookstore where wouldn't you know that a lot of books tumble from a top shelf and Amelia is able to turn to the very page where the next murder is illustrated. Just think. If she hadn't stumbled over that rare volume, we might have been denied a scene where a father drowns but his young daughter is resuscitated--for no dramatic purpose, mind you, since she says nothing and is never seen again, but simply so sentimentalists in the audience can think, "Whew! At least she didn't drown!" In a movie where a man gets his face eaten off by rats, these humanitarian interludes are touching.
Most of the plot consists of a series of laboriously contrived set-ups requiring the young woman to enter dark, dangerous places all by herself, her flashlight penetrating a Spielbergian haze that makes its beam visible. She walks into subterranean ratholes and abandoned factories where the homicidal maniac is, hopefully, lurking. She goes in alone so as not to disturb the forensics of the crime scene. If she gets killed, I guess the next cop goes in alone, too, to preserve her scene.
These Women in Danger thriller units alternate with the obligatory Superior Officer Who Is Always Angry, Wrong and a Pig. This thankless role is played by Michael Rooker, who is required to be mistaken about everything, and who keeps trying to put Amelia under arrest, apparently on charges of brilliant police work. He's the obvious suspect, which means--well, you know what it means. Most movies with a zillion clues have the good manners to supply a couple that are helpful. This movie's villain appears so arbitrarily he must have been a temp worker, in for the day.
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