Jennifer Lynch's belated follow-up to Boxing Helena (1993) is a dark, violent psycho-thriller. In a nod to her father David Lynch's cult TV series Twin Peaks, the protagonists here are FBI agents (played by Bill Pullman and Julia Ormond) who arrive in a small town to investigate a string of recent murders on a local highway. One or two fine shock moments that are certainly not for the squeamish prevent the film from becoming boring, and the final twist is a genuine surprise in what is usually a very predictable genre. Unfortunately, such flashes of originality aren't enough to compensate for Lynch's failure to emulate her father's mastery of mood and tension as she smothers a very simple story with irritating flourishes (lots of slow-motion sequences and strange, ominous noises). She also allows a very capable cast to overact, literally, like mad.

The head of an elite Hong Kong surveillance unit keeps one eye on his rookie apprentice and the other on a notorious criminal he suspects of masterminding a recent jewel heist in this tense thriller from filmmaking duo Johnnie To and Nai-Hoi Yau. Of course, the criminal knows all along he's being watched. But that doesn't stop him from trying to pull off the biggest score of his career.