Many dedicated professionals, when trying to deal with psychological toll of their work, try to find comfort at the bottle. This include protagonist of After Alice, 2000 crime thriller directed by Paul Marcus. Mickey Hayden (played by Kiefer Sutherland) is police detective who, like many of his colleagues, turned to drink. But his problems become even more complicated after he gets injured during a fall. One of the unexpected consequences are the strange visions that he gets whenever he touches various objects related to crimes he investigates. Hayden is after that sought by parapsychology expert Harve Hatter (played by Henry Czerny), who claims that an injury has activated detective’s latent psychic abilities. Hayden is sceptical towards such claims, but a series of cruel murders would make him change his opinion. It appears that the serial killer nicknamed “Jabberwocky”, which had killed his last victim ten years ago, is active again. Hayden reluctantly begins to use his new gift to catch him, although the truth behind the killings appears to be much more complex than he had anticipated.
Although it tries to exploit serial killers - a subject that has been done to death in 1990s - this relatively unknown low budget film explores this phenomenon in a relatively simple way, and the same can be said of the way it treats psychic motives in the plot. Many low budget productions that mix those themes would end as cheap exploitation, but director Marcus and screenwriter Jeff Miller decide not to to treat potential viewers like idiots. So, the visual style is very conservative, without rapid editing characteristic for MTV videos. The killer doesn’t use quasi-religious symbolism and doesn’t possess any supernatural abilities or superior intelligence. Even the violence is relatively subdued for this kind of films. Script treats characters realistically and even the surprise twist near the end looks plausible. Kiefer Sutherland plays his character in a good and realistic manner, unlike Henry Czerny which goes a little bit over the top. British actress Polly Walker, on the other hand, looks more like an eye candy and her character is redundant. Although far from being classic or especially memorable, After Alice is a solid low budget thriller for less demanding audience.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
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