Richard Gere stars as an officer who definitely isn't a gentleman in this murky trawl through the American sexual underbelly, the first English-language film by Hong Kong director Andrew Lau (Infernal Affairs). Public safety officer Erol Babbage (Gere) is employed to keep tabs on registered sex offenders - his flock - interviewing rapists, child abusers and exhibitionists to make sure they don't re-offend. Burnt out and violent, he's about to retire when a case involving a missing girl drags him and his rookie partner (Claire Danes) deeper into the seedy underworld he abhors yet is quietly obsessed by. Heavily influenced by the grubby, strip-lit neon nihilism of Se7en, 8mm and Hardcore, the film makes a vague pretence of charting Babbage's inner turmoil while layering on lashings of lurid sexual violence designed purely to titillate. It's an uncomfortable mix and the general sense that it doesn't add up probably wasn't helped by the departure of Lau during production.

Erroll Babbage has spent his career tracking sex offenders and his unorthodox methods are nearly as brutal as the criminals he monitors. When he links one of his deranged parolees to the disappearance of a local girl, he and his new partner must scour the S&M underground to find her before it's too late.