Damn you Kaiser Soze and your damn twists at the end of your damn movie!  Now everybody with Microsoft Word on their computer wants to write a twisty old script with that big twist that they hope you don’t see coming.  Such is the case with the DTV thriller starring Michael Madsen entitled ‘Chasing Ghosts’.  When you put the words ‘Michael Madsen’ and ‘DTV’ together one starts getting cold chills and an un-suppressible twitch in one’s my eye because my man Mr. Blonde has blessed his presence in arguably some of the worst films made this century so far, but ‘Chasing Ghosts’, though it couldn’t be classified as a ‘good’ movie, was at least a competent one, and sometimes you just have to be thankful for that.

Madsen plays tortured police detective Kevin Harrison who we learn as the film goes on used to be a cop on the take from vicious mobster Marcos Alfiri played Gary Busey  - who is about as far from being a guy called ‘Marcos’ as anybody ever.  It’s akin to calling Larry the Cable Guy Ivan Calderon.  Anyway, Alfiri has found a mole in his operation, an undercover cop named Mark Spencer (Michael Rooker), has him tied to a chair and gives Harrison a gun to kill the dude.  Harrison doesn’t want to do it, but Alfiri informs him it ain’t no damn request and the undercover cop catches a couple in the chest.

The story begins however years later with the murder of Dmitri Parramatti (James Duval), son of noted mobster Anthony Parramatti (Robert Miano).  Dmitri’s death is followed by a number of deaths of high ranking members of both the Parramatti crew and the Alfiri crew, with Alfiri safely locked away behind bars.  What Harrison along with his new young partner Cole Davies (Corey Large) find strange about the case is

the amazing lack of evidence left behind by the killer and the fact that the killer is leaving strange clues, like Polaroid photos and corpses with scrabble pieces stuffed inside of them.  Seems the photos form a puzzle of a picture of missing cop Mark Spencer right before he was killed with the pieces slowly forming, ready to reveal his killer, as more Polaroid’s are found on the mounting number of dead thugs.  Needless to say this has Harrison a bit on edge, particularly since he’s taken on the role of guardian of Spencer’s twenty something daughter Taylor (Shannyn Shossamon).  Oh but there is so much that we don’t know about what’s going on in this little movie.  Is it a supernatural thing?  Has Spence returned from the dead to wreak revenge or is our killer Alfiri’s mythical son who no one has ever seen, taking out his enemies to consolidate his holdings?  One must watch to find out the truth.

There are some good things about ‘Chasing Ghosts’ such as the fact they rounded up every tough guy actor available that they could convince to be in this thing.  Madsen, Rooker, Busey, Danny Trejo, Patrick Kilpatrick, Tom Wright, Meatloaf… you might not know all of the names, but you will know the faces.  ‘Chasing Ghosts’ is a very nice looking movie with a washed out color palette giving the film a nice gritty, urban feel and also giving it some real atmosphere.  There’s action to be had, murders to be seen, a little nudity to view and script filled with mystery and intrigue so all of the elements are certainly in place for what could be a nice, entertaining movie.  But while watching ‘Chasing Ghosts’, the thought is running trough my mind ‘Why am I not enjoying this movie more?’ especially considering the plusses I had just mentioned. 

Trying to put my finger on the problem, it seemed the pacing of the film just felt ‘off’.  The action elements, the mystery elements, and the dramatic elements never came together to form a cohesive film.  Part of this could be that director Kyle Dean Jackson was never able to find the right groove for the story he was trying to tell, or it could be the editing that was off, but Jackson cut the film too so… They do say a director should never cut his own film.  That’s what they say.  The script was a problem in that the whole mystery of the ‘mysterious son’ was a little to easy to solve and quite honestly when the big twist is revealed it just opens up another can of nonsensical issues which don’t make a whole lot of sense, which out of respect for the movie and it’s big twist we won’t get into.

‘Chasing Ghosts’ was a disappointment more than anything else as it was a fine looking movie with a nice cast who really acquitted themselves well in this film.  There’s a fine line between ‘good’ and ‘not so good’ and it’s too bad that ‘Chasing Ghosts’ fell on the darkside of that line.