Soho Square

Inspired by the grit of classic film noir detective stories and the digital-video intimacy of the Danish Dogme 95 movement, Soho Square (2000) is an intriguingly nonlinear murder mystery that is more about its young, handsome but thoroughly haunted inspector than it is about his case. Newcomer Anthony Biggs plays J., a London homicide cop hunting a serial killer who sets his young female victims ablaze and likes to watch them burn. The most recently discovered body throws J. and his partner for a loop because it doesn't fit their suspect's pattern, but J. has other things on his mind--namely the death of his beautiful, pregnant wife some time ago, which has left his soul in shards. Through lucid but effectively disorienting editing, writer-director Jamie Rafn follows J.'s psyche as the investigation unfolds, integrating memories of his wife, complications involving a barmaid who reminds him of his beloved, and a neighbor with a little daughter. Soho Square brings these elements together for some startling developments, but Rafn also trips up in ways that threaten to break the film's provocative spell: the digi-grainy imagery often feels more like a cost-cutting measure than an artistic choice, J. makes a couple of stupid (and unlikely) moves when chasing the killer, and the police procedural dialogue is often clumsy exposition. But Rafn's unconventional talent for eluding whodunit familiarity takes the film to a memorable climax. Recommended. (R. Blackwelder)