**
Highly fictionalized account of the case of Robert Hansen, the man who kidnapped, tortured, raped, and then hunted women in the Alaskan wilderness, finally killing them. At any rate that's what one would think the movie is about. Writer-director Walker, however, was perhaps so determined not to glorify Hansen -- he barely shows us anything the man actually did -- that he ultimately made a movie about someone else. With Nicolas Cage as Jack Halcombe, the detective who figures out there's a serial killer on the loose, and Vanessa Hudgens in the egregiously embellished role of intended victim Cindy Paulson who, after escaping Hansen's clutches, remains a target. All the faux excitement generated by Paulson's peril is wrapped up in a script that wanders aimlessly between Halcombe, Hansen, Paulson, and a couple of ancillary characters -- Paulson's pimp and a hired thug -- as if searching for its genre. Is it a police procedural, a thriller, or a redemptive tale of a brooding cop and a tragic hooker? You know it's confusing when the man who murdered at least 17 women isn't even the bad guy of the climax.
Highly fictionalized account of the case of Robert Hansen, the man who kidnapped, tortured, raped, and then hunted women in the Alaskan wilderness, finally killing them. At any rate that's what one would think the movie is about. Writer-director Walker, however, was perhaps so determined not to glorify Hansen -- he barely shows us anything the man actually did -- that he ultimately made a movie about someone else. With Nicolas Cage as Jack Halcombe, the detective who figures out there's a serial killer on the loose, and Vanessa Hudgens in the egregiously embellished role of intended victim Cindy Paulson who, after escaping Hansen's clutches, remains a target. All the faux excitement generated by Paulson's peril is wrapped up in a script that wanders aimlessly between Halcombe, Hansen, Paulson, and a couple of ancillary characters -- Paulson's pimp and a hired thug -- as if searching for its genre. Is it a police procedural, a thriller, or a redemptive tale of a brooding cop and a tragic hooker? You know it's confusing when the man who murdered at least 17 women isn't even the bad guy of the climax.