The Flock

Directed by Hong Kong filmmaker Andrew Lau (whose masterful Internal Affairs was remade by Martin Scorsese as The Departed), The Flock stars Richard Gere as Erroll Babbage, a driven—even obsessive—caseworker for the Department of Public Safety. Tasked with keeping track of registered sex offenders (his flock), Babbage is haunted by a past case of abduction, so he's ready to break all the rules when a young girl goes missing and he suspects that the culprit is one of his parolees. Gere is relatively understated in a role that begs for scenery-chewing, while Claire Danes is fine in a less challenging part as the wide-eyed, naïve apprentice assigned to keep him out of trouble. The Flock bears comparison to David Fincher's Se7en, and likewise has some fairly intense moments involving gore and aberrant sexuality, which some viewers will no doubt find unsettling (although these scenes are not gratuitously salacious or exploitative). A direct-to-video release in the U.S., The Flock may not be a classic of Hitchcockian proportions, but it's well worth watching. Recommended. (E. Hulse)