Review of Mindhunters (2004) by Paul D — 29 Mar 2014

Directed by Renny Harlin (Cliffhanger (1993), The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996) and Deep Blue Sea (1999)), this thriller was ever so partially inspired by Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians, but while it had potential to be a good thriller, it's let down by cliched, predictable sequences and some very dodgy CGI too, which is a shame considering the talent on board making the film.

The film follows a group of Mindhunters, who are FBI agents on a training exercise on a small island off the coast of North Carolina, which has a mock town constructed there. The team consist of instructor Jake Harris (Val Kilmer), Lucas (Jonny Lee Miller), Bobby (Eion Bailey), Vince (Clifton Collins Jr.

), Nicole (Patricia Velasquez), Sara (Kathryn Morris), Rafe (Will Kemp), Gabe (LL Cool J) and J.D. (Christian Slater). It's meant to be a routine exercise, it's been done loads of times before, but someone there starts picking them off in inventive and grisly ways, and they discover that it's someone on their team who has been doing it, but who?? This is a film that owe's a lot to what was to come in Saw (2004), but this has all been seen before, and it was done a lot better elsewhere too.

Mindhunters was delayed 2 years when it switched distributors during post-production and when Harlin went off to re-film Exorcist: The Beginning (2004), this got forgotten. Oh, well.