2009 / Jonas Åkerlund > You know how a well-written thriller is supposed to be one step ahead of the viewer, making sure that the tense atmosphere continues until the very end? This isn’t one of those. Too often, the genre conventions fell into place and I found myself one step ahead of Dennis Quaid’s detective in charge of discovering the Horsemen behind some grizzly murders. In and of itself, this could survive if the story is good, but even that fails because of lack of scope. It’s as if someone promised me a trip to Paris and then took me to Philadelphia—it simply doesn’t work. No matter how well intentioned the ending may be, disappointment remains. All this is quite sad in two respects: Akerlund was on my list of directors to watch after a risky yet satisfying effort in Spun. Also, it was nice to see Zhang Ziyi play something different (in this case, a creepy, slithering snake of a woman with devious intentions).