I was very excited to hear about Mindhunters. Being that this movie was originally scheduled for a January 2004 release, it makes you wonder why the producers pushed the release date so far back.

It is a story about a group of FBI profiler recruits who are stranded on an island to solve a fake murder mystery. The fake murder mystery quickly becomes real as the recruits are murdered one by one, and the group is faced with solving the murders before they are in turn murdered. There hasn't been a good psychological thriller movie since Silence of the Lambs, and that added to my desire.Unfortunately, this film did not quench my thirst for one.

Director Renny Harlin (Driven, Cliffhanger, Die Hard 2), along with Writer Wayne Kramer (Writer / director for The Cooler) had all the elements they needed to have one hell of a movie. They had suspense, mystery, adventure, and a set of really cool gadgets. But somehow, they managed to not capitalize on any of them. A star studded cast of LL Cool J, Val Kilmer, Christian Slater, Kathryn Morris, and Patricia Velasquez looked promising, but alas, Harlin failed to capitalize on these assets as well.

Ultimately, the acting was mediocre, and although the plot wasn't predictable, the characters seemed so flat that it made the rest of the film uninteresting. The situations in which the characters found themselves were quirky. They weren't contrived, because that would imply that there was some kind of fore thought. In every situation, save one, the characters seemed to accidentally wander into death, even though each death was supposed to be meant for a specific person at a specific time. I found myself wishing I could hit pause so that I could do something more interesting (go to the bathroom, brush my teeth, get more soda, etc.).

The movie does have a strong dark feeling to it, which was not exaggerated in anyway by the soundtrack.It seemed more an afterthought than an active part of the production process. The ending was overdrawn, and may make you feel like it is time to get up and leave 4 or 5 times before the credits finally do roll. Each new resolution leads ineffectually into another climax.

If you have the choice, save this one for DVD!I'm giving this one 2 simply because it tried really hard not to be a 1.