Jack Nicolson plays Jerry Black, a homicide detective in Nevada who is drawn into a troubling and horrific murder of a little girl on the day of his retirement. Chosen as the person to inform the girl’s parents he makes a solemn promise to her mother that he will find out who is responsible. A suspect is soon found and confesses to the crime just before he commits suicide in custody. Jerry is not convinced by the man’s confession as he is mentally unsound, but to the rest of the force the case is closed.

Jerry becomes obsessed by the case and finds that there are other similar unsolved murders of young girls in past years and so he believes a serial killer to be on the loose. He moves to the area to continue investigations and becomes totally committed to finding the killer, particularly after he befriends a woman in the town (Robin Wright Penn) who has a similarly aged daughter to the other victims. While there is not much action to this movie the viewer gets taken in by his investigation and the tension builds towards the conclusion.

VIDEO
The Anamorphic Widescreen transfer is in fact pretty good throughout the movie. The details are sharp, except where deliberate fuzziness is used to give a softer feel to either foreground or background images. The colours are generally muted given the subject matter of the movie and adds to the overall atmosphere. Lots of black and blue tones are used, but the picture still retains good resolution and the Nevada mountain scenery is in fact quite pleasant to look at. The movie has a R rating and does show brief images of the dead girls, however no graphic violence is shown, it is the imagination that is left to develop as the movie progresses.

AUDIO
A Dolby Digital 5.1 track is provided with the movie. There is minimal use of the surrounds except for ambience and music scenes. Mostly the audio is quite subtle but the dialogue is clear and audio synching is very good

EXTRAS
Limited extras are included, the usual theatrical trailer and a series of Cast and Crew Biographies are presented only as text format. Unfortunately no interviews with the cast are provided as it would have been interesting to listen to why Jack Nicholson chose this script to act in, since he must be in demand by many directors.

A very good cast in this movie keeps the story and tension alive to the end.