Suspect Zero tries to resurrect the serial-killer thriller by sadly mimicking the television series “The X-Files.” It’s a double-whammy loser. Filling in for Scully and Mulder are Carrie-Anne Moss and Aaron Eckhart, both of whom deserve better roles than those of the romantically entangled FBI agents on the trail of a child-murderer here. Also questionably

A misstep for director Sam Raimi, this thriller about a psychic reader (Cate Blanchett) who investigates a murder in her backwoods Georgia town may cover similar territory as Raimi’s excellent A Simple Plan, but it’s as overblown as that naturalistic crime tragedy was understated. Unhappily misused here is a fine cast, including Keanu Reeves, Hilary

Val Kilmer gives what should have been a career-revitalizing performance in writer-director David Mamet’s Spartan, a government-conspiracy drama that casts an oblique eye on modern military politics. As Robert Scott, a government operative called in when the president’s daughter is kidnapped, Kilmer has just the right deadpan style for Mamet’s trademark dialogue. Deception proves to

Another woman-in-peril movie from Ashley Judd, very similar in its pseudo-feminist tone to Double Jeopardy, Eye of the Beholder and Where the Heart Is. This time she stars as a glitzy lawyer defending her husband (Jim Caviezel) against a military conspiracy. There’s plenty of emotional manipulation here (including the callously casual use of a miscarriage

As long as it stays ambiguous and messy – much like the international espionage it depicts – Spy Game is a smart, scintillating consideration of the prices that are paid for the sake of American national security. As a 30-year CIA veteran and his protege, Robert Redford and Brad Pitt make a fine screen team;

Runaway Jury depicts jurors as puppets – the drama lies not in their final decision regarding the case before them, but in who will win the battle to pull their strings. As a case study in manipulation, the movie fascinates. If unnecessary thriller elements take over in the end – this is a John Grisham

Remember that photo of Richard Reid, in which the would-be terrorist looked like he wouldn’t be able to light a cigarette, let alone a shoe bomb? Those are the kind of bad guys who drive the plot of Red Eye, in which a woman on a plane falls victim to an imbecilic hostage/blackmail/assassination scheme. Going