Diagonaldi Very well executed

ActuallyGlimmer The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Mischa Redfern I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Jenna Walter The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

gavin6942 Brothers Vincent (rich playboy) and Clay (average construction worker) meet up for the first time after their father's funeral and remark on how similar they look. But unknown to Clay, who thinks his life is taking a turn for the better, Vince is actually plotting to kill him with a car bomb and pass the corpse off as his own, planning to start a new life elsewhere with his father's inheritance.Before the script was even written, those involved were looking into identity, paranoia and amnesia, and drew strong influences from Hiroshi Teshigahara's "The Face of Another", "Seconds" and "Manchurian Candidate", among others. (One of the writer-directors almost pursued a PhD in Japanese film, actually.) Mix that in with the tropes and cinematography of film noir, and you have the birth of "Suture", a minor masterpiece that anticipates such films as "Memento" (which unfortunately have overshadowed this).Being an independent film, the budget was low, and the production ironically benefited from the recent S&L crisis and scandals. Shooting in Phoenix, they found some buildings closed down, including a bank that became Vincent's palatial estate. This was fortuitous, as the space works perfectly (I would never have known it wasn't an actual mansion.) Other corners were cut in more clever ways... watch close to see how they afforded blowing up a car -- they use an almost Troma-esque maneuver.There seems to be a deeper message in the writing, with an obvious nod to Descartes, and a psychiatrist who seems overly reliant on quoting Freud. I am not sure what I missed. But you have to love the brilliance of the casting. Maybe I am a little bit daft, but it took me forever to get past the two brothers looking identical... while looking nothing alike. That was a purely genius move. (Not surprisingly, producers balked at the film's central "conceit" and their insistence of filming in black and white... this could easily have ruined some careers.)The Arrow Video release is packed with goodies. Not only does it have the full-length audio commentary (with no less a person than Steven Soderbergh), but we have a 30-minute behind-the-scenes series of interviews with just about everyone. We have deleted scenes. And, perhaps best of all, we have "Birds Past", a short film from the directors that has very rarely been seen anywhere. This is a must-own film, and for true film geeks, you will want to listen to the commentary: there is as much discussion about this film as there is about film-making in general, with plenty of stories about "sex, lies and videotape", Terrance Malick, and more.

kevinjenkins1957 Excellent modern noir, though could've had a better ending as I will explain later. Elements of Hitchcock and David Lynch could be seen/felt, but definitely had it's own style. Acting was great, though not in a completely realistic way, more like the other worldly, slightly dreamlike delivery found in a Lynch film, but it didn't get as bizarre or unfathomable as Lynch often does (don't get me wrong, I love David Lynch!). Direction, Cinematography and Editing, again, excellent. So many interesting shots and sequences. A lot has been said about the choice of actor for Clay and the fact that everyone in the film sees the brothers as identical. My interpretation is that they ARE identical twins and that there just happens to be a black actor playing Clay and a white one playing Vincent. If the director decides they are identical twins in the film and that everyone in the film will see them as that, then they are. If a director has a prop of the Grand Canyon made for a film that doesn't look like the Grand Canyon, but he decides it is and has all the characters in the film treat it as the Grand Canyon, then in that film, it is the Grand Canyon. Obviously this was done on purpose to give more weight to the theme of identity. I don't think race had anything to do with the story of the film except in the mind of the viewer, which is valid, as it is such an issue in our society and why i think the director chose a black actor (rather than another white actor) so that the viewer will think even more about identity. I believe the twins were born to Mrs. Lucerne and separated at birth. There is a sequence where she describes this. I think this is when he received the St Christopher. Why Vincent was kept by Mrs Towers we don't know. Why Clay didn't stay with Mrs Lucerne, we don't know. Mrs Towers must have known there was another twin because he was at the funeral. Where did the St Christopher appear from after going missing? Was it put there by Vincent or Mrs Towers?I would have given this 10 stars, but for the ending, which was OK, but could've had a choice of twists. 1. He assumes the identity of Vincent, but then some new evidence comes to light and he ends up being charged with the murder of his father. 2. Even better, the Clay we see at the beginning of the film before the explosion is a facade and he actually killed the father after finding out about the details of his birth. this is why he also shot Mrs Lucerne because she gave him away to a poor life in a poor town. He was then planning to kill Vincent and assume his identity, but Vincent got to him first. I think this is borne out by the fact that, once he realises who he is, he's not as nice a guy as at the beginning of the film. I think he decides to remain as Vincent because that was his plan all along. And then the new evidence comes to light and he ends up being charged with the murder of his father. I think Mrs Lucerne, Mrs Towers and the St Christopher could've been woven into a much better ending, but even so, one of the best films I've seen for a while

ssg7 Apart from being wholly original, filled with homage, visually stunning, and satisfyingly rich on levels that expand with each viewing, I found this movie's deadpan conceits hilarious. The plot hinges on extreme physical resemblance between a skinny, sociopath, upper-class white guy (Vincent), and a man who looks and is nothing like Vincent, except they share the same father, whom Vincent has probably murdered. A similar trick was played, but in reverse, in Charles Willeford's brilliant short novel, Pick-Up. But back to the conceits. Awful Vincent enacts a plan to beat the patricide rap by fratricide. To this end, he invites brother Clay, whom he met at Dad's funeral, to Phoenix for the weekend. Clay, (both malleable and model-handsome - get it?) survives murder-by-exploding-car with horrible injuries and no memory, and is, in fact, taken to be Vincent. Throughout the movie, few notice the difference between the strange white guy and the giant, hunky, wonderful, black man. The difference, when taken, is moral, not physical. Among the many virtues of this movie: the psychic soundness of Clay's return to mnemonic wholeness; genuine happiness between the surpassingly lovely plastic surgeon and Clay; the pleasure of viewing (for once) the character delineation of a whole man incidentally black, with the white folks stereotyped. Good acting, especially by Dennis Haysbert and Dina Merrill.

KGB-Greece-Patras If you're the type of guy that likes trying to figure out 'whats the deeper meaning' of the film, or like an expression we use ' what does the poet wanna say' then see it.If then again you like Hollywood crap, avoid this one, as its in Black&White :POther than a HUGE plot gap, which is surely deliberate and thats what the whole enigma is about, he film is really nice made mystery / character development film with lots of good ideas. Maybe it inspired MEMENTO a bit.