As far as serial- killer films and thrillers are concerned this one's right down there with the worst of 'em. Only "Copycat" and "Sisters" manage to be more annoying in their absurdity, and only "Saw" is worse. And it's a pity because the first hour is genuinely eerie, with a fittingly claustrophobic mortuary as the ideal setting. I am a very jaded viewer, but some of those early mortuary scenes really get under your skin. However, after an hour it all goes downhill, and I mean steeply. The relentlessly stupid plot twists rob you of all patience and the movie just keeps sinking to new lows. All logic is thrown into the wind, and the viewer's intelligence is insulted and pounded upon repeatedly with more force than that baseball bat could ever have generated - the one used by Nolte and McGregor. (I'd be the first to sign up if they were looking for volunteers to take that baseball bat and bash the heads of the writers of this nonsense.) Nothing here adds up. Absolutely nothing. Nolte was molesting corpses decades earlier and the writers of this film would have us believe that this man could years later become the city's chief police investigator! Making him the killer is as absurd as giving Thomas Edison credit for inventing the wheel, as laughable as a conspiracy-theory plot from the "X-Files", and as stupid as Kim Basinger's book on how to solve all of world's problems (if she'd ever write one). The very notion that a man - so disturbed that he indulges in necrophilia in mortuaries - would have the sanity, interest, patience, and willingness to climb all the way to chief investigator in a police department only to start a savage murder spree is simply a mind-bogglingly dumb, far-fetched concept to me.
And how the hell did he even start with the framing of McGregor? This is an essential piece of the puzzle that is badly missing here; McGregor JUST HAPPENS to get a job where he meets Nolte. And McGregor's best friend, Brolin, JUST HAPPENS to know a prostitute who is Nolte's play toy (and later victim). It can sure be a small, small world in a Hollywood stinker! And to add some silliness, Brolin is some kind of a deranged thrill-seeker who acts like a total lunatic all the time. Obviously, he is the decoy for the viewer; we are meant to treat him as the suspect. But how dumb do they think we are? And how the hell did Brolin get into the mortuary when he carried out his "practical joke"? And how the hell did Nolte manage to drag out a body of one of his victims within seconds of McGregor entering the room, without McGregor noticing it (the fact that he had his walkman on and/or was singing and/or talking doesn't make it any more believable)? And what's with this annoying scene where Arquette JUST HAPPENS to walk into the mortuary at exactly the moment when McGregor is hitting Nolte with a baseball bat and predictably starts thinking her boyfriend is the killer??! More annoyances came from the scene in which Brolin's reaction to McGregor's telling him that the latter is been suspected of murder is to laugh! Or the one in which he cuts off his own thumb in order to free himself and save the others. Sure,... why not?? ("I am being hand-cuffed to this metal pole, and as a result can neither save my friends nor myself... What do I do...? I know!... I'll cut my thumb off! How come I didn't think of that before!?...") Nolte makes the best out of his role, but due to the bitchingly silly script he appears to be hamming it up too much at the end - but what choice did he have? McGregor is solid, too, apart from his on-and-off accent (which was it now? American or English?).
And how the hell did he even start with the framing of McGregor? This is an essential piece of the puzzle that is badly missing here; McGregor JUST HAPPENS to get a job where he meets Nolte. And McGregor's best friend, Brolin, JUST HAPPENS to know a prostitute who is Nolte's play toy (and later victim). It can sure be a small, small world in a Hollywood stinker! And to add some silliness, Brolin is some kind of a deranged thrill-seeker who acts like a total lunatic all the time. Obviously, he is the decoy for the viewer; we are meant to treat him as the suspect. But how dumb do they think we are? And how the hell did Brolin get into the mortuary when he carried out his "practical joke"? And how the hell did Nolte manage to drag out a body of one of his victims within seconds of McGregor entering the room, without McGregor noticing it (the fact that he had his walkman on and/or was singing and/or talking doesn't make it any more believable)? And what's with this annoying scene where Arquette JUST HAPPENS to walk into the mortuary at exactly the moment when McGregor is hitting Nolte with a baseball bat and predictably starts thinking her boyfriend is the killer??! More annoyances came from the scene in which Brolin's reaction to McGregor's telling him that the latter is been suspected of murder is to laugh! Or the one in which he cuts off his own thumb in order to free himself and save the others. Sure,... why not?? ("I am being hand-cuffed to this metal pole, and as a result can neither save my friends nor myself... What do I do...? I know!... I'll cut my thumb off! How come I didn't think of that before!?...") Nolte makes the best out of his role, but due to the bitchingly silly script he appears to be hamming it up too much at the end - but what choice did he have? McGregor is solid, too, apart from his on-and-off accent (which was it now? American or English?).