The Fifth Patient 2 1/2 stars
Nick Chinlund, Isaach De Bankole, Brendan Fehr
Directed by Amir Mann
Shows again June 12 at 3 p.m.
A man wakes up in a run-down hospital in a tiny African nation with no idea of who he is or how he got there. Various shadowy figures interrogate him, accusing him of unspecified crimes. He must piece his life together while convincing his captors not to kill him.
This is an immediate and engrossing set-up, similar to the basic template for plenty of thrillers, and it lends The Fifth Patient a certain momentum that lasts more than halfway through the film, until writer-director Mann starts providing some answers about why exactly his main character (Chinlund) is in Africa, and what his mysterious tormentors and/or allies are trying to get out of him. As the possible spy begins to regain bits and pieces of his memory, along the way becoming more confident in his own espionage skills, the film resembles The Bourne Identity on a smaller scale. Chinlund has the looks and charisma of a young Harrison Ford, and he carries the movie well as he and the viewers embark on the same search for the truth.
Unfortunately, the truth we end up with is convoluted and unsatisfying, and the more Mann reveals the less interesting the movie becomes. He’s got a good visual style and a knack for creating suspense; he’d probably do well to direct a thriller that a stronger screenwriter had constructed with a little more narrative sturdiness.