Slow Burn 2005

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Shelved for over a year, this incompetent mystery thriller stops periodically so some character or other can deliver an expository speech and pull the plot back on track, but by the end the story has turned into a hair ball. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: The bigger problem is that for all the plot turns and reversals and flashes of action that Beach has structured into his film, there's an elusive extra something that's missing. Read more

Michelle Kung, Boston Globe: A lesson in how not to make a multiple-viewpoint mystery. Read more

Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times: Beach's storytelling tactics, much like the film as a whole, would simply be annoying if they weren't also borderline insulting. Read more

Scott Brown, Entertainment Weekly: A strange, sprained, but sprightly fusion of The Usual Suspects and the Tragic Mulatto, Slow Burn wants badly to turn its standard neo-noir into a nuanced racial chiaroscuro. Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: If you have not figured out the identity of Luden by the finale, it will only be because you do not care. Read more

Luke Y. Thompson, L.A. Weekly: Writer-director Wayne Beach figures if you liked Bryan Singer and Christopher McQuarrie's big climactic reversal, you'll love four of them in a row! Read more

Gene Seymour, Newsday: [Director] Beach slams open the trap doors of false and real identity with such a frenzy that, even at the end, you're not sure who's who and what they did to whom. It's sloppy fun to watch while you're in the theater. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: It's not a brilliant movie. It's certainly not worth canceling any appointments to catch at the theater. But it's more than worth a quick look on cable, or even an impulsive rental. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: Nothing is what it seems -- unless it seems cheesy. Read more

Eddie Cockrell, Variety: Has direct-to-video etched all over it. Read more