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Stephen Hopkins was never going to be the right director for this kind of film. He is a visual director with no patience for character drama. After bringing some colourful life to the Predator and Nightmare on Elm Street series’, the kind of movies let’s face it where human interest is secondary, he finally found his way to the all-important big-budget, big-screen realm with the likes of Lost in Space and The Ghost and the Darkness. Both movies showed a man with true visual flair. Under Suspicion however does not call for such flashy film technique. It is a story about two men and a quest for truth, an intimate portrayal of their lives and foibles, or it should have been. Even with such fine actors as Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman at his disposal, he can’t resist over-indulging with these glossy pyrotechnics.

Two young girls have been raped and murdered in the town of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Police Captain, Victor Benezet calls his old friend, Henry Hearst now a wealthy lawyer and influential town figure in to tie up some loose ends in his statement – as he was the person who discovered one of the girls. Hearst goes along happily, thinking that he will spend the time catching up with his college buddy, but Benezet has other ideas.

With the acting talent involved, Under Suspicion seems like the biggest injustice of the year. While Stephen Hopkins must take his full share of the blame with his often-intrusive direction, the script is the movie’s real downfall. At its heart is a thoroughly turgid little mystery involving a truly frustrating and unlikeable central character. After a certain point, even the most patient of sleuths will stop caring. On this level, the film is found severely lacking, undone further by some highly overwrought developments. The inevitable twist comes off as limp and uninspired, not to mention entirely unconvincing.

While he should have let the actors do the talking, Hopkins does manage to make good use of the sweltering, somewhat sinister Puerto Rico locations, bringing them to seedy, colourful life. One of the more jarring aspects of the film is his continual insistence of bringing Benezet into Hearst’s flashbacks. Initially it helps the narrative’s focus but quickly becomes an irritation.

The two stars really save Under Suspicion from total obscurity. While they are not quite in the same league as the DeNiro/Pacino coupling in Heat – thanks mostly to the lazy script – they both set the screen alight with the startling ease we have become accustomed to. Hackman has a whale of a time with his petulant, sleazy socialite while Freeman is allowed to unwind a little, playing a less-than-entirely-noble person. As the interrogation lays bare both characters, the actors show why they are known as two of the best working today in American cinema.

Backing them up are the two actors who really suffer at the script’s hands. Thomas Jane is an excellent up-and-coming actor with a whole load of screen presence – as seen in Boogie Nights, the awesomely sick and twisted indie Thursday and most prominently dumb shark thriller Deep Blue Sea. Here, he is handed a one-note character as Benezet’s sidekick, Detective Felix Owens, all righteous fury and angst, little else. However, he does what he can, managing to register with ease. French actress Monica Bellucci does a serviceable job but she is given even less to do, unlike her last movie, the wild and dangerous thriller - from her homeland - Dobermann in which she owns the screen.

At the end of the day, the only people who will get anything from this tiresome film are fans of the two stars. It is further proof that Hollywood should stop looking abroad for inspiration, adapted, as Under Suspicion is from the French movie Garde a Vue. While I have not actually seen the movie, I have seen enough French cinema to know that the one thing they excel in is intimate human drama. France is the most popular country from which America pillages. The stark, brutal but stylish La Femme Nikita became the dull, lifeless Bridget Fonda vehicle The Assassin. A slightly edgy teen comedy starring Gerard Depardieu, Mon Pere, Ce Heroes is turned into complete Disney fare My Father, the Hero, also starring the illustrious Gerard Depardieu. Perhaps worst of all, the dark, nasty masterpiece Spoorloos gets transformed into the movie that inflicted Sandra Bullock on the world, not Speed but The Vanishing. With these films being mere examples of this on-going trend it must be, by now very clear that the two country’s sensibilities just do not match.