Movie Review: Mindhunters

Yesterday I went to see the thriller Mindhunters. The basic concept is this: There is an elite group of FBI agents all competing to earn the title of "profiler" under the tutelage of a highly controversial professor (Val Kilmer). As the final exercise in their training, they are sent to an island off the coast of North Carolina that is usually used by the Navy SEALs for urban combat training, but has been temporarily reserved for FBI use. Upon arrival, the candidates are abandoned and left to solve a string of "murders." However, immediately upon arrival things start to go wrong and the candidates themselves start dying. Soon they come to the conclusion that it is one of their companions that is killing the others, and the plot thickens...

This movie started off fairly strong, but lost momentum after the plot was established. The opening sequence is creepy, and the first few murders are downright crafty (although the special effects are cheesy), but once the pattern of killings is established, it gets a little tedious. The climax has one pretty cool fight scene that involves a white guy beating the shit out of LL Cool J, and one not so cool fight scene that involves the use of firearms underwater and poorly delivered femmenazi propoganda. You got me on that one. The conclusion is pretty predictable, but not unsatisfying. AKA: The empowered female shoots the white chauvanist male in the neck and proves that women too can be in stupid movies. Then she boards a spontaneously apparating (yes, that was Harry Potter terminology) aircraft with the other opressed minority figure: the token black guy.

The characters are all your typical horror movie cliches. Including the femenist heroin who is filled with self doubt, the token black guy (LL Cool J; who by the way, everyone refuses to listen to even though he was right throughout the movie, I guess he showed whitie), the slut, the dude who is sleeping with the slut, the paranoid crackhead spazz who declares "we're all going to die!", the sensitive hero, and the omnipresent hispanic cripple with a firearm fixation.

All in all, it isn't particularly impressive, but it isn't disappointing either. The plot concept is a cool idea, and you'll be left wondering about the cool possibilities that probably should have gone into the movie rather than the actual coolness of it. If you've already seen Kingdom of Heaven and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and you absolutely must see a movie, then go for it. Otherwise, wait for it to come to your local blockbuster, because it isn't worth the money for the DVD.