EMMETT'S MARK

US, 2003, 104 minutes, Colour.
Scott Wolf, Gabriel Byrne, Tim Roth, Candi Alexander, Talia balsam, Adam the favourite.
Directed by Kevin Snyder.

A small-budget police thriller with some unexpected turns, a star vehicle for television's Scott Wolf (Party of Five). He plays Emmett, a depressed detective, who gets news that he has a terminal disease. While he continues his investigations into a serial killer with some vigour, he has met a former police officer in a bar, talked about his impending death and has agreed that a contract killer can take him out suddenly so that he does not have to suffer.

Gabriel Byrne plays the go-between and hires criminal, Tim Roth.

All is not as it seems and the film builds on tension, especially with the relentlessly ruthless Roth. The film is more interested in characters and their response to these limit situations than to the actual police work, so that it gets grimmer and grimmer as it goes on. Much of the action is filmed at night, in dark apartments and on the streets and in parks which makes it an even grimmer matter of life and death.

1. A detective thriller? Psychological thriller? Suspense thriller?

2. Philadelphia, the city, police precincts, homes, bars, crime atmosphere? The musical score?

3. The title, the different meanings of mark, target, making one’s mark? The twists?

4. Emmett, his name, age, personality, his work as a detective, his abilities? The doctor, the interview, the news of his illness? The limited time? His acceptance of this? In the bar, the former policeman? Discussion, the offer for a killer, the decision about his death? The contract? His pursuing his investigations, the interviews with the women, the serial killer, the profile?

5. The importance of the time element, for him to complete his work before dying? To get to the killer when his death was no longer imminent?

6. The fixer, former policeman, his contact with the killer, taunting him?

7. The killer, fixated, alone, the pornography? His girlfriend? Mad intensity? Ruthlessness?

8. The move to melodrama, the wrong diagnosis, the search for the killer, the final confrontation? Shooting? The revelations?

9. Emmett in the light of the ending, the interviews with the women, his relationships with women, his home?

10. A psychological journey?