2.5 Pulses

Rated R

Businessman Ted Crawford (Hopkins) knows before we know that his wife is having a torrid affair and has already set his plan in motion.

Methodically, he stalks around the hotel where she and her lover play, sneaks into their room and once home, he stares ominously at his magic marble contraption awaiting her return to give her a point blank shot to the face.

When the police arrive, he hands over the gun and gives a confession.

Only it turns out not to be the murder weapon and worst yet, the hostage negotiator who witnessed his signed confession is the wife’s lover, throwing a wrench into what the district attorney’s office hoped to be an open and shut case.

Though screenwriters Daniel Pyne and Glenn Gurr’s story development maintains a steady pace and stays consistently involving, the characters are so one-dimensional and flat that the thriller loses its spark.

Hopkins appears to be slumming it in this performance, half-heartedly playing the role. He’s not creepy or sophisticated as one might expect, and he’s only a slight devilish touch to the mind games he plays with the cocksure young lawyer.

And Gosling, as the hot shot public defender assigned to the case, tries so hard to capture a Midwestern drawl that he’s forgotten how to act and delivers his lines with such urgency that you’d think he’s onstage in a high school play. He’s far too arrogant to be sympathetic, torn between the lure of black tie affairs and fat paychecks and the desire for justice.

The alluring cinematography of Kramer Morgenthau, though, makes it easy to forget the characters have no substance and moves along the story fluidly, keeping it from being a complete waste of time.