Can't say I liked it too much...

Mindhunters is one of Renny Harlin's newest films. The director is perhaps comprehensively acknowledged for his action movies: in the 1990s, audiences witnessed such films as The Long Kiss Goodnight, Cliffhanger and Die Hard 2 (debatably his best film). Unfortunately, the director has seen better days. The director has seen some real stinkers, for example Deep Blue Sea and Cutthroat Island. The remaining fans of the director probably had their hopes set pretty high for this film. In traditional Renny Harlin style the film is exceedingly entertaining, but contains a fairly preposterous set of events.

Mindhunters achieved poor results at the box office despite a solid cast and its renowned director. This film is a substantially flawed, but reasonably entertaining modern take on Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None (a.k.a. Ten Little Indians). In addition to borrowing elements from Christie's story, there is further evidence of unoriginality: first of all, the film's trite plot is something one would expect to see every night on CSI or something. Secondly, there are also chief elements borrowed from typical slasher films such as Friday the 13th. In other words, this film borrows from everything.

In any case, the film's story concerns a group of seven FBI agents-in-training. These seven people have potential to reach the status of an FBI psychological profiler, and are being trained by hard-nosed FBI instructor Jake Harris (Kilmer). For their final test, the seven FBI students are transported to an isolated island where they will spend the weekend tracking a mock serial killer: performing as part of a team to solve the simulated murder. Those who manage things capably go onto FBI postings. Those who flunk will be cut from the FBI. For this weekend, an additional "observer" is brought along to report on Harris' training methods (this observer is played by LL Cool J, who's billed as his real name - James Todd Smith - probably to show that he's serious about acting). Once on the island, real murders begin unfolding. It grows obvious that among these agents-in-training there's a serial killer using precise timing techniques to execute each person one by one. The idea is that these FBI students are allegedly learning to profile killers...but the tables are reversed, and it appears the killer is profiling each student according to their psychological profiles. That's the cleverest plot twist in a story that is otherwise fairly mundane.

There are several key flaws in Mindhunters that unfortunately destroy its major potential. First of all, character development is non-existent. Very soon into the movie we're already on the island and the killer is on the loose. We're expected to attempt to solve things ourselves and sympathise with the characters. But do we care? No! We are never given a reason to care about these characters apart from their looks and absurd behaviour. We're never introduced to the characters sufficiently, and we've never given adequate background on them for us to be interested in their safety. They are purely exchangeable faces.

The cast are a mixed bag. Val Kilmer is in good form, as are a few other people. Jonny Lee Miller, on the other hand, is embarrassingly bad. His accents change frequently...from American to British to various incoherent accents. Another flaw is the high levels of improbability. These agents are supposedly smart, yet their behaviour is preposterous and laughable. Also, the killer somehow manages to set elaborate traps in just a few minutes. The precise timing of these traps is impossibly accurate and would take hours to set! Are we supposed to believe someone formulates these ideas incredibly quickly? Gimme a break!

Overall, Mindhunters is a reasonable thriller from Renny Harlin. The murders are usually grisly, gory and violent, with the film containing a few interesting plot twists. Of course the film is competently made with an impressive atmosphere and a moderate entertainment value. However things are just so stupid and it's impossible to suspend your disbelief. Not to mention some shocking acting at times, and zero character development.

5.3/10