Mindhunters
'Mindhunters," a dumb new action thriller, is what I like to call a pick-off movie. You've seen one before. A group of actors is assembled -- rarely are they more talented or more famous than, say, Christian Slater, who happens to appear in ''Mindhunters." Gradually, whoever or whatever is doing the slaughtering runs through the cast until the actor with the best agent, the most auspicious career, or, in a recent nod to these films' desired urban audience, the darkest skin, slays him-her-it.
The ''Alien" films are classic pick-off flicks. The two ''Anaconda" movies are recent examples. So is ''Wrong Turn," in which Eliza Dushku's bid for survival was like a 90-minute cardio session.
There are moments in ''Mindhunters" -- which has been blowing around Miramax's release schedule like a dust bunny -- when you can feel the burn, too. Such as when the fatless LL Cool J performs a climbing-wall routine in an attempt to save someone from electrocution.
Why on earth is that necessary? A group of eight FBI profiling trainees is dropped off -- by veteran agent Val Kilmer, who's smart to never quite return -- on a deserted island. The place doubles as an instructional facility where the recruits set out to profile the imaginary killer who's slayed a lot of mannequins and dummies.
The killer, of course, is less hypothetical than originally thought, and soon this simulation exercise starts producing real deaths that range from a frozen body shattering to garden variety impaling and decapitation.
The plot thickens after it becomes apparent that the person responsible for the picking isone of them. ''Them" includesSlater (the leader), Mr. Cool J(the outsider and, for our purposes, the black guy), Kathryn Morris (the star of CBS's crime drama ''Cold Case"), Jonny Lee Miller (the English actor with a scary Southern accent), Patricia Velasquez (the sexy Latina), Eion Bailey (the Mark Ruffalo lookalike), Will Kemp (an actual British guy), and Clifton Collins Jr. (the disabled one).
Everybody looks extra guilty, and ''Mindhunters" turns into a grisly round of Clue. Is it Morris in the basement with a blowtorch? Or Bailey in one of the bunks with a vial of cyanide? Not even Colonel Mustard would stick around for the finale.
The man who should keep us from saying ''So what?" is Renny Harlin, whose directing career hasn't been the same since the pirate disaster ''Cutthroat Island" 10 years ago. He puts enough muscle in a few of the action sequences to make you think he might have another ''Die Hard 2" or ''Long Kiss Goodnight" buried in his unconscious.
But I couldn't bring myself to care whether the woman from ''Cold Case" lives, dies, catches or is the stinking killer. It's hard to have sympathy for a movie that tosses in the old shower sneak-up sequence or allows its characters to speak as obviously as possible while standing in a pool of red liquid. (''I've got something. I've got blood!").
The movie can't even have campy fun with the foolishness in Wayne Kramer and Kevin Brodbin's script. Instead, the camera work, effects, and editing turn -- lazily -- downright ''CSI." The shot of the plastic ducks floating on a lake is a nice touch. But ultimately that joke doesn't seem to be on any of the characters. It's on us.
Wesley Morris can be reached at wmorris@globe.com.
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