The thriller genre would be considerably poorer without that medical rarity but staple cinematic affliction, amnesia. The latest in the time-honoured tradition of "Who am I? What have I done?" suspensers sees Tom Berenger shattered of mind and body after a mother of a car cartwheeling-over-cliff prelude. Naturally he is not too upset to discover he is married to Greta Scacchi, lives in a mansion north of San Francisco and has loadsamoney. He is further able to take in the information that he has Joanne Whalley-Kilmer for a mistress without too much consternation. Since he can still remember how to do things like drive and get to grips with Greta, what's to worry, right?
Unhappily for all concerned, enter Bob Hoskins stage right as an asthmatic, animal loving private detective toting a bill for services rendered before the brain damage and merely the first discumbuberating string of revelations. 'Ere long everybody in sight - including the three British actors curiously but credibly passing for Americans - is a suspect, but one of the virtues of Wolfgang "Das Boot" Petersen's screenplay and direction is that one is unsure what it is to suspect them of . Is Berenger's Dan Herrick the victim of a plot, or is he the bad guy? As he wades through a veritable school of red herrings viewers are unlikely to out guess him, suckered along with him by disturbing photographs, sinister telephone calls in the night and mysterious assignations - all of which build up nicely to a startlingly effective twist unless someone is churlish enough to give it away beforehand.
Despite some definitely silly moments, Petersen's grip on the labyrinthine proceedings, Angelo Badalamenti's appropriately creepy score and the attractive cast add up to a neat and satisfying "whodunnwhat".