Like Minds [Murderous Intent] *** (2006, Eddie Redmayne, Tom Sturridge, Toni Collette) – Classic Movie Review 12,426

Toni Collette stars in the creepy and compelling 2006 Australian psychological thriller film Like Minds as a forensic psychologist who interrogates an English boarding schoolboy (Eddie Redmayne) to try to find out whether he is guilty of murder.

Toni Collette stars in writer/ director Gregory J Read’s creepy and compelling 2006 Australian psychological thriller film Like Minds as a forensic psychologist who interrogates English boarding schoolboy Alex Forbes (Eddie Redmayne) to try to find out whether he is actually guilty of the murder charges the police have brought against him for killing his schoolmate.

The 17-year-old Alex Forbes attends a boarding school where his father is the Headmaster (Patrick Malahide), who places a nutty new student, Nigel Colbie, in Alex’s dorm room. Nigel is an unusual boy with a morbid fascination with all things dead, keeping and dissecting animals preserved in jars.

Alex is not happy, and complains to his father and Nigel is finally moved out, but Alex can’t stop thinking about him. After Alex flirts with a girl named Susan, who is in their school play, Nigel kills her, having already killed one of their classmate buddies. Nigel tells Alex they are two of a kind and there are things that must happen for them to gain eternity. Like they’re out of their minds!

Eddie Redmayne and Tom Sturridge are tremendous as the two boys, though it is Redmayne’s star show, and he is really rather brilliant, in a mesmerising display of the demonic and devious. Alex may not be very nice, his own worst enemy and not prone to making good first impressions, according to the psychologist, but Redmayne keeps you on his side with his sly, self-confident charm. Sturridge has a lot less to do, but he is very effective, doing it mostly with dark stares and grim grimaces. Collette is her usual appealing, brisk and capable self, plus a bit more, as the forensic psychologist Sally Rowe, providing some weight and depth to the show. Though she is not the police detective, she is in effect the story’s detective.

Malahide has much satisfying stuff to do in a good role for him, and Richard Roxburgh is quite showily intense as as the police detective Sn. Dt. Martin McKenzie, the psychologist’s friend, but David Threlfall has virtually zero to do as Nigel’s father who is in the same secret society as Alex’s father Mr John Colbie. This should be a key character, but somehow isn’t. he just slips away. The copper McKenzie is in the same secret society, incidentally. It all keeps coming back to the secret society.

The well-made film moves effortlessly between the scenes of interrogation, and the flashbacks to the events being narrated, and then on to the urgent current events. The director provides a lot of useful atmosphere and tension. The script provides a lot of useful detail and distraction that effectively prevents you from focusing on the actual plot, very clever that, eh? The film is polished but lurid and quite nasty, with a satisfying payoff. The deadly cat and mouse game between the schoolboy and the psychologist is a good game and recalls a similar game in Fracture.

The film was shot on location in Yorkshire, England and South Australia. Scenes in the hall were filmed in Bradford Grammar School, Bradford. The school chapel scenes were filmed outside and inside the chapel of Giggleswick School, near Settle, in North Yorkshire.

The film was produced by the South Australian Film Corporation and was the first Australian/ UK co-production to be set in the UK in over a decade. It debuted in Australia on 9 November 2006. The ideal title Like Minds was retitled to the weak and generic Murderous Intent for its 2007 US DVD release.

Like Minds is Eddie Redmayne’s feature film début and Gregory J Read’s directorial feature film début. Redmayne was 24 at the time, convincingly playing 17.

It was released on 9 November 2006 and reported to have taken only A$34,840 at the box office in Australia.

The cast are Eddie Redmayne as Alex Forbes, Tom Sturridge as Nigel Colbie, Toni Collette as Sally Rowe, Richard Roxburgh as Sn. Dt. Martin McKenzie, Kate Maberly as Susan Mueller, Patrick Malahide as Headmaster, David Threlfall as John Colbie, J, Cathryn Bradshaw as Helen Colbie, Jon Overton as George Campbell, Henry Hereford as Tom Horsham, Amit Shah as Raj Mehta, and Hugh Sachs as the Rev Donaldson.

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,426

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com