Suspect Zero

Rated 3.0 An FBI agent (Aaron Eckhart), demoted to a backwater office after blowing a major investigation, finds himself on a case that could be even bigger—a serial killer (Ben Kingsley) who seems to be tormented by a compulsion to stalk other serial killers. Billy Ray and Zak Penn’s script is frankly derivative of other movies—Se7en, Frailty and, of course, The Silence of the Lambs—and it veers wildly into X-Files territory where cooler heads may be disinclined to follow. Still, director E. Elias Merhige establishes an efficient (if perfunctory) atmosphere of menace, and performances are effective; it’s always fun to watch Kingsley’s eyes glitter as he chomps the scenery. Carrie-Anne Moss tags along as Eckhart’s partner and former lover, but she doesn’t do much; it’s essentially a two-character film.