Suspect X
Hiroshi Nishitani

The story: The body of a man has been discovered, his face pulverised and his prints removed. Police officer Kaoru Utsumi (Kou Shibasaki) is assigned to the case and she enlists the help of brilliant physicist Manabu Yukawa (Masaharu Fukuyama), also known as Detective Galileo. His suspicions come to rest on a former schoolmate, the highly intelligent mathematician Tetsuya Ishigami (Shinichi Tsutsumi).

Suspect X is a crime thriller but it is not one of the usual suspects.
It has an impressive pedigree, based on the award-winning mystery writer Keigo Higashino’s popular Detective Galileo series and it reunites the principal cast from the hit TV adaptation.
Like the compelling Korean hit The Chaser (2008), we know who the killer is from the start.
We are witness to an act of violence that takes place when former hostess Yasuko Hanaoka (Yasuko Matsuyuki) receives an unwelcome visit from her loutish ex-husband.
After she and her daughter Misato (Miho Kanazawa) unintentionally kill him, things take an unexpected turn when her neighbour Tetsuya Ishigami knocks on her door and offers to help her out.
Knowing whodunnit in no way diminishes the pleasure of watching Suspect X. We watch with rapt attention as the neighbour constructs an alibi for mother and daughter, coaching them on how to stay a step ahead of the police.
Too many Hollywood cop flicks have a fetish for stylish and glamorous violence, and it is deeply satisfying to have a back-to-basics thriller which is all about the battle of wits between two superior minds.
The film signals its intentions early on when Professor Manabu Yukawa delivers a lecture on cause-and-effect rationality to detective Kaoru Utsumi, who is seeking his help on another case. The kicker though is the seemingly throwaway comment that love is irrational and cannot be resolved in an equation.
Suspect X pivots on a few of these little scenes which take on greater significance at the end of the film.
Cast-wise, pop singer-actor Masaharu Fukuyama imbues the cerebral physicist Yukawa with a light touch of playfulness while Kou Shibasaki has less to do in the role of earnest cop Utsumi. As the beauty in trouble, Matsuyuki brings together vulnerability and a streak of steely defiance.
The revelation here is Shinichi Tsutsumi. As Ishigami, he is calm and collected throughout, his eyes droopy, his movements slow and deliberate, yet he is able to convince one that the mind of a genius lies behind that misleading facade. His performance only serves to increase the power of the emotional wallop that hits you at the end of the film.
Not only is Suspect X a fine thriller, retaining the ability to surprise even when it seems that the case is closed, it is also, movingly, about the small acts of kindness which can sustain someone’s life and how love can be both a redemptive and destructive force.
Police procedurals such as Crime Scene Investigation may wow you with technical wizardry but such gizmos are useless when it comes to plumbing the unfathomable depths of the human heart.
(ST)