Fear X

A thoroughly riveting slow-burn of a psychological thriller, Fear X stars John Turturro as Harry, a man mourning the violent murder of his wife, who obsessively struggles to solve the case, watching over and over again the grainy video from the surveillance cameras that captured her death. Harry lives in a sparse, blue-collar world, delineated with chilly frugality by director Nicolas Winding Refn and cinematographer Larry Smith (Eyes Wide Shut)--all harsh colors and bare environments (filmed in rural Wisconsin during winter, and nicely mirroring Harry's stripped-down psyche). Turturro has, of late, created some startlingly memorable larger-than-life caricatures (Secret Window), but here he is so still and focused that we are sucked right into his pent-up pile of psychic energy--a disaster waiting to happen, and when it does, everything that's come before that point (thanks to the marvelously twisted script by Refn and novelist Hubert Selby Jr.) becomes suspect, and we become complicit in Harry's delusions...if indeed they are delusions. Highly recommended. (M. Johanson)