Retro Film Review: Papertrail (Trail of a Serial Killer, 1997)
Hyperproduction of serial killer films has affected not only Hollywood, but also the cinema industry of America's northern neighbour. Another example of low budget filmmakers trying to repeat the formula used by better-funded and better-talented colleagues is Papertrail a.k.a. Trail of a Serial Killer, 1997 Canadian thriller directed by Damian Lee.
Protagonist of the film is Jason Enola (played by Chris Penn), FBI agent who spent last ten years of his life trying to catch particularly vicious serial killer. His fruitless efforts exacted heavy toll on his well-being - he was forced to leave his family and now begins to slowly lose his mind. After one year of pause the killer strikes again and Jason is close to go over the edge, while his best friend and colleague Brad Abraham (played by Michael Madsen) tries to keep him sane. In the meantime, psychiatrist Dr. Alyce Robertson (played by Jennifer Dale) begins to receive messages that could have been sent only by the killer. Enola contacts her and begins to think that the killer could be among the members of Dr. Robertson's therapy group.
Low budget of Papertrail can be seen in two major roles being played by character actors instead of "regular" Hollywood stars. Thankfully, those character actors are more than dependable and they can carry a film. Penn and Madsen are very effective in their roles and their presence alone makes Papertrail watchable. The script, on the other hand, is recycling of all the usual cliches about unstoppable, all-powerful serial killers that can afford to personally taunt investigators. Therapy group subplot, which is probably borrowed from Color of Night provides Damian Lee with convenient excuse to throw "red herrings" at the audience and spends unnecessarily big amounts of time on potential suspects and their sad stories. One of those subplots is responsible for the film's sex scene, which is unusually explicit for most 1990s examples of the genre. More experienced viewers, however, are going to predict the plot resolution with great ease and for them Papertrail would represent nothing but a waste of time.
RATING: 3/10 (+)
(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.films.reviews on May 13th 2004)
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Movie URL: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/86699-papertrail
Critic: A
