Mindhunters (2004)

Director:

Renny Harlin

Writers (WGA):

Wayne Kramer (story)
Wayne Kramer (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

13 May 2005 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Drama | Horror | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline:

For seven elite profilers, finding a serial killer is a process of elimination. Their own.

Plot:

Trainees in the FBI's psychological profiling program must put their training into practice when they discover a killer in their midst.

Plot Keywords:

FBI | Serial Killer | Island | FBI Trainee | Gay Kiss

Awards:

2 nominations

Cast

Eion Bailey	...	Bobby Whitman
Clifton Collins Jr.	...	Vince Sherman
Will Kemp	...	Rafe Perry
Val Kilmer	...	Jake Harris
Jonny Lee Miller	...	Lucas Harper
Kathryn Morris	...	Sara Moore
Christian Slater	...	J.D. Reston
LL Cool J	...	Gabe Jensen (as James Todd Smith aka LL Cool J)
Patricia Velasquez	...	Nicole Willis
Cassandra Bell	...	Jen
Daniël Boissevain	...	Second Man in the Bar
Antonie Kamerling	...	Man in the Bar (as Anthone Kamerling)
Jasmine Sendar	...	Friend of Jen
Trevor White	...	Attacker

Also Known As:

Mind Hunters (USA) (alternative spelling)
Mindhunters (Finland)

MPAA:

Rated R for violence/strong graphic images, language and sexual content. (re-rating)

Runtime:

106 min | Australia:105 min (edited version) | Denmark:101 min (edited version)

Country:

USA | Netherlands | UK | Finland

Language:

English

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

South Korea:18 | Brazil:18 | Canada:14A (Ontario) | Iceland:16 | Malaysia:18PL | Malaysia:U (cut) | Japan:R-15 | Malaysia:18SG (DVD release) | Malaysia:(Banned) (theatrical) | New Zealand:R16 | Argentina:16 | Australia:MA | Belgium:16 | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Canada:14A (British Columbia/Manitoba) | Canada:18A (Alberta) | Canada:R | Finland:K-15 | Germany:16 | Hong Kong:IIB | Netherlands:16 | Norway:15 | Philippines:R-13 | Portugal:M/16 | Singapore:M18 | Singapore:NC-16 (cut) | Spain:18 | UK:15 | USA:R | Mexico:B15 | Singapore:NC-16

Filming Locations:

's-Gravenhage, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands

Company:

Dimension Films

Trivia:

In order to maintain its modest budget, the score was part of a package. A single fee covered the composer's bill and also the cost of executing the score and orchestration, musicians for the non-electronic sections, mixing, and recording studio time.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: The CCTV camera shown in the film has no cables coming from the cable entry glands at the back of the housing, nor is the mount it is on a cable-concealed bracket, thus the camera would not be powered or capable of transmitting footage. Additionally, the housing and bracket shown is not a PTZ (Pan-Tilt-Zoom) telemetry housing and thus would not be able to rotate side to side.

Quotes:

[first lines]
J.D.: How about I drive, huh?

Movie Connections:

Spin off "Mindhunters" (2008)

Soundtrack:

Puppet Playtime

Not bad at all

I don't want to give away too much about the story, so I'll stick to the basics.

A small group of FBI-serial killer experts are in a training program. Val Kilmer is the trainer, an eccentric character named Harris who runs the show in his own way. The whole idea is putting them in situations where they are likely to mess up, so that they will think twice before acting to quickly or jumping to the wrong conclusions in real life.

The idea of this last exercise is to isolate the group on a deserted island, so they can focus on "profiling" a killer without any help from forensics, witnesses and so forth. Things take a very unexpected turn when one of the team gets killed.

It would seem that instead of an exercise they are faced with the real thing : Profiling and identifying a killer before he kills all of them. Is the killer an outsider or someone from within their team ?

---------

Stuck on an island, people ending up dead one after another... Yes, there is a more than a dash of Agatha Christie there. But there are plenty of interesting add-ons to this Ten Little Indians clone. The acting is pretty decent, although in my opinion LL Cool J was a little too cool to be convincing (some of lines really are over-the-top...) and maybe Miss Valesquez should limit herself to non-speaking parts as her English sounds very laboured.

Don't go in expecting a masterpiece, just enjoy the ride. This movie is a fun high-adrenaline action movie /thriller. I give it 8/10