Mindhunters

MPAA Rating: R

Entertainment: +2 1/2

Content: -2

In this thriller, JD Reston (Christian Slater), Bobby Whitman (Eion Bailey), Rafe Perry (Will Kemp), Vince Sherman (Clifton Collins), Sarah Moore (Kathryn Morris) and Nicole Willis (Patricia Velazquez) are FBI agents taken to a secluded government facility on an island off the East Coast. They examine crime scenes and evidence to formulate psychological profiles of serial killers. In an unorthodox training program under the tutelage of Agent Harris (Val Kilmer), the agents learn to quickly and successfully analyze an arranged crime scene and to ascertain a criminal's identity. The goal is to quickly identify and apprehend the killer. Gabe Jenkins (LL Cool J) joins the team as an observer to learn more about this training program. Once the simulation begins, one of the agents is gruesomely killed. What was once believed to be a harmless test of their abilities becomes a fight for their lives as the agents find themselves up against a real killer.

The gory and psychological manipulation of Mindhunters makes it as much a horror flick as a thriller as characters are eliminated. Manikins are used in a variety of gruesome poses with one hung on meat hooks from a ceiling. In a series of calculated and carefully planned killings, one man's body parts are shown crumbling to the floor as he is frozen with nitrogen. Another man is hung from the ceiling by cables and hooks and then manipulated like a marionette. Love relationships among the male and female agents lead in one case to a man and woman meeting in the communal showers for soaping and groping. Mindhunters certainly gets its viewers into the mind of a killer. For this reason along with the gory portrayal of violence, obscene language, and sexual content, Preview cannot recommend this film.

Preview Reviewer: Brian Hughes
Distributor: Dimension/Miramax

Summary
The following categories contain objective listings of film content which contribute to the subjective numeric Content ratings posted to the left and on the Home page.

Crude Language: Many (10) times - mild (hell 3, damn 2); strong (-ss 3, SOB 2)

Obscene Language: Many (24) times - strong (f-word 16, s-word 7, BS 1)

Profanity: Several (6) times - moderate (G 1); strong (GD 3, J 2)

Violence: Many times - mild (shoving and struggling, someone is hit in the face, man is hit in the head with a fire extinguisher, people handcuffed to stationary objects, many open wounds as a result of explosions); moderate (martial-arts fighting, attempted electrocution, drowning, acid poisoning, man shot in the head, man shot in the chest with arrows); strong (manikins used to portray gory crime scenes; dead man is hung from the ceiling with hooks in his hands, legs and face to emulate a marionette; dead and decomposing animals are hung from the ceiling with flies buzzing about; man's body is frozen with nitrogen and breaks apart; man's head falls off of his body; dead cats are hung from the ceiling)

Sex: Few times - mild (man and woman kiss passionately); strong (man and woman are intimate in the shower)

Nudity: Few times - moderate (buttocks and back are shown of nude man in shower, nude woman in shower is shown from the waist up with breasts covered by arms)

Sexual Dialogue/Gesture: Several times - mild (the rape and drowning of a character's sister is mentioned); moderate (intimate talk between man and woman while they're in the shower)

Drugs: Several times - mild (alcohol drinking in a bar, cigarette smoking); moderate (group of people are drugged without their knowledge and all pass out)

Other: An appropriate use of "thank God"

Running Time: 106 minutes
Intended Audience: Adults

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