Natasha Henstridge smokes a cigarette and hides her eyes behind dark glasses while coolly sizing up her next assignment, and then launches into action. Is she a femme fatale, or merely a hard-boiled fiction fan looking for a job in Angus MacFadyen's musty, messy bookstore? Before we can find out, she's clipped in a hit and run and wakes up with amnesia. Or is it just a ruse, and if so, why? Of course nothing is as it seems in this sleek, slick, modern film noir. MacFadyen has an awful lot of money for a man who actively dissuades browsers and buyers from his store; Henstridge is shadowed by a couple of menacing-looking characters; and somewhere in the back of it all a creepy Peter Fonda is pulling the strings as a calmly meticulous and coldly ruthless crime boss. Darrell James Roodt directs this twisting tale of secret identities, double crosses, hidden pasts, and concealed loyalties with all the grit and depth of a fashion layout: it's handsome but hollow. Thankfully there's the criminally underrated Henstridge at the center of all the mysteries, a sexy, assured, riveting presence who gives weight to the film's most enigmatic character. Perhaps it's not so hard after all to understand loner MacFadyen risking his present for a future with the fiery, dangerous Henstridge. --Sean Axmaker
