Agatha Christie's Cop Out: Mindhunters (2004)

Mindhunters (2004)
Rating: ***1/2
Starring: Val Kilmer, LL Cool J and Christian Slater

Coming across being a mix-match crossing between CSI and SAW (2004), Mindhunters follows seven profilers-in-training placed in an isolated training facility for FBI agents and military trainees, an island base equipped with working computers, food, shelter, as well as a whole armory full of weapons. Their assignment during the stay is to follow the tracks of a serial killer monikered "The Puppetmaster" and stop him before another victim pops up. It all should have been just simulations of props, sets and actors to test their skills as potential future criminal profilers until, that is, one of them got killed for real through an elaborate trap. Further learning that the entire base have been rigged with similar traps and all connections from the rest of the world have been cut off, it is clear that someone with or among them has the intention of killing the rest off and our motley group has no choice but to trust no one and suspect anyone...

Mindhunters (2004) works well enough a whodunit thriller, laying around enough red herrings and suspects to play a part on picking out the killer hiding in the casts, done here with a more modernized taste of cyber-babbles and cop drama flair. It's a clear nod to the popular Agatha Christie novel "And Then There Were None", down to the variously creative ways our characters exit out of life and the eventual paranoia and confusion settling in, pitting the surviving few against one another. To be frank, the horror-adjacent kills pretty much sells a good deal of this movie's entertainment factor and have it fit in well with the slasher crowd as the movie wasn't shy on getting a bit silly with them, from a victim getting frozen to death to rigged flying harpoons, from deadlier-than-average cigarettes to Goldberg-esque traps ala Final Destination movie. 

Of course, it also suffers the same drawbacks that many slasher film are inflicted with; like many bodycounter titles, Mindhunter's idea is a little unoriginal as there are already a handful of movies out there following the pattern of folks getting picked off one by one by an unknown killer, only this one managed to be a slightly inventive as a catch by letting the killer's traps do all the dirty work, keeping their identity as mysterious and unknown as possible. Acting and casting is fair with a little cheese at times but not too frequent, I've say it was more or less just for the sake of comic relief, and the direction is passable considering its angle as a popcorn friendly, bodycount action-horror.

Among many action-slasher hybrids out there, at least this made an effort. Nowhere as good as, let's say, Maniac Cop (1988) or as clever as the original SE7EN (1995), Mindhunters makes it up with a clever direction, fast pace, and bloody good times.

Bodycount:

1 female glimpsed drowning

1 cat found hanged and disemboweled

1 male had his lower body doused with liquid nitrogen, broke in half

1 male found beheaded

1 male gets projected harpoons impaled into his chest and neck

1 female accidentally ingests acid disguised as cigarettes

1 male knifed offscreen, later found hanging on a hook to his back

1 male found with throat slit

1 female found stabbed to death

1 male had a rigged gun malfunction and got shot in the face

1 male shot to the head

Total: 11