True Crime

Once in a while, studio heads actually make smart decisions. Kudos to whoever at Trimark screened this embarrassing, overwrought, underthought "mystery" and decided, "You know, we really don't need to let the American public see this," and immediately shipped it straight to video. Probably the one most pleased by the decision was Alicia Silverstone, who didn't need this type of thing getting a theatrical distribution and hurting her blossoming career. As for Kevin Dillon? Well, he was probably happy just to get a paycheck. Silverstone plays the teen Nancy-Drew-meets-Encyclopedia-Brown protagonist who teams up with fresh-faced police cadet Dillon to try to bag a serial killer who's been butchering teenage girls at traveling carnivals in various cities. Writer-director Pat Verducci packs his thriller with implausible detective work and numerous plot twists, all visible 20 minutes away. The "shock" ending can pretty much be figured out within the first act, leaving viewers another hour to watch Verducci concoct several amateur dream sequences, and explore a disgusting sexual relationship between Silverstone and Dillon. By the end, the question isn't so much "Whodunit?" as "Who cares?" --Dave McCoy