Close Your Eyes Movie Review

Michael Strother's more than just a hypnotherapist, he's also a psychic! And when you hypnotize a police detective who's trying to quit smoking and start seeing her cases in your mind, well, it's big trouble for our hero!

Goran Visnjic's Michael is a troubled soul, having moved from Europe to America and back again in hopes of escaping whatever demons come along with his strange powers. Too bad he keeps flapping his gums about children floating in bodies of water and so on -- obviously the curiosity of those who he prophesying for get a little curious. And so it comes that a detective (Shirley Henderson, not really cut out for this part) blackmails Michael into helping her out on a kidnapping case -- the young girl escaped her tormentors but she hasn't spoken since. Enter the mind reader to get to the bottom of things.

If the pentagram on the video cover doesn't cue you too it, there's a cult revealed in this, which can make for a hit and miss movie -- and lately, the good ol' cult hasn't amounted to much in the movies. Sure enough, the film starts to lose steam when it begins relying on tired cliches (the killer's making a pattern that's only revealed when you plot points on a map!), leaving us to simply bide our time until it's all said and done.

Visnjic proves he can conceivably carry a movie if given a chance. But he still needs to find one worth his time.

Aka (ahem) Doctor Sleep.