LARSONRD Compelling and provocatively literate crime thriller along the SILENCE OF THE LAMBS variety. Goran Visnjic plays a hypnotist who managed to get a connection with a 10 yr old girl who escaped from a ritualistic serial killer. His family winds up being endangered, of course, but the way the story plays out, including his platonic rapport with the British detective, hampered by her superiors, in solving the case is quite enjoyable. Murders turn out to have something to do with 16th Century occultism. Overall a quite satisfying mystery/thriller, nicely made, and effectively directed. Simon Boswell contributes an effectively eerie score that adds to the atmosphere.

Libretio DOCTOR SLEEP (USA: Close Your Eyes) Aspect ratio: 2.39:1Sound format: Dolby DigitalA sleep psychologist (Goran Visnjic) 'blessed' with the ability to read minds is recruited by London police to probe the psyche of a traumatised little girl who recently escaped from an elusive serial killer.Typical BBC stuff, all mood and very little action, though the murderer's identity and motives are certainly unique, and there's an extraordinary mind-reading sequence early in the film when Visnjic experiences an alternative 'twilight' reality where the killer seems to operate with impunity. In all other respects, however, the movie is dry as dust: Director Nick Willing (PHOTOGRAPHING FAIRIES) generates very little suspense, even as Visnjic stumbles closer to the maniac's identity, and William Brookfield's half-hearted script (co-written by Willing, based on a novel by Madison Smartt Bell) is timid in all departments.

gridoon To describe this film, I will borrow a phrase that the inimitable Pauline Kael had once used: hokum without the fun of hokum. Despite some camera tricks and computer effects, "Doctor Sleep" is plodding. The script is muddled, and Shirley Henderson's amateurish performance as the female detective is a big hindrance. Though it is filmed in London, it takes little advantage of it as a city, and portrays its police as stuck-up buffoons. Besides, when a movie starts with plot elements like hypnosis and mind-reading, who wants to see a far less interesting story involving occult symbols and satanic rituals? I will admit that some scenes work - they can make you a little queasy - but that's it. (*1/2)

FieCrier I had wanted to see this in the theater, but I don't think it lasted very long. Then again, I lose track of when movies come out, and end up expecting them to still be around longer than maybe they should. Despite the release date of 2002, it didn't come out here in the US until April of 2004 or so.So, I've caught up with it now on VHS, in a sort-of widescreen that looked a little odd. Better to go with the DVD.A hypnotherapist has moved to the UK from the US, though he was from Europe originally. He helps people quit smoking using hypnosis and only takes cash. It appears that when he hypnotizes someone, he can see inside the visualization he is leading his clients through. Sometimes their own memories of traumas surface inside their visualizations, and consequently when a policewoman comes in, a difficult case of hers surfaces. She more or less blackmails him into helping her.A young girl doesn't speak anymore. She has at least one occult tattoo on her that was put on her by a kidnapper. Other children with similar tattoos had showed up dead, but she apparently escaped somehow. The hypnotist and the policewoman also use the expertise of a toy model shop owner who is widely read in the occult.The movie was pretty good. To some extent it feels like a cross between The Ninth Gate and Stir of Echoes.