"Spinning Man" is a neo-noir film that evolves into a suspenseful cat-and-mouse game between a philosopher professor, Evan Birch (Guy Pearce),and a seasoned detective, Robert Malloy (Pierce Brosnan). The professor is a specialist in the philosophy of language, and one of the intriguing parts of the film is the philosophical banter between the professor and the detective, who has a law degree and is clearly a skilled debater, as well as a savvy investigator.

According to the behind-the-scenes segment of the DVD, the film was based on a real event that inspired George Harrar 's book that was subsequently adapted into a screenplay. Brosnan identified "an eliptical sensibility" to the script. That is an apt way of describing the sense of how the film starts with a mundane incident by a lake and a missing person, then builds a story in a non-linear fashion as the philosophical issues start to supersede the crime drama.

A point made in the bonus track by the screenwriter was how the character of the professor was "self-destructive." That observation is revealing about the interpretation of the professor by actor Guy Pierce, who played the role with great confidence and no apparent intimidation felt from the aggressive the police detective. It was as if the actor was playing the opposite of what the character is really like, almost like a psychological defense mechanism.

Indeed, there were effective details in the film that offered psychological insights into the characters. The professor and his life were forced to leave Evanston following his inappropriate conduct with a young woman. Yet the professor has still kept a memento of a book a matches with the young woman's handwriting on the booklet, setting up a rendezvous. In the same vein, the detective relates to the professor how members of Alcoholics Anonymous carry a coin with them as a reminder not to take a drink. In two crucial moments of the film, the detective is scene handling such a coin.

Pearce described the film as "an explanation of human behavior and the fragility of one's identity." The film was successful in integrating philosophical discourse with a standard film thriller. One of the provocative ideas explored in the interaction between the professor and the detective was the thin line between "truth" and the individual's subjective "interpretation of truth."

By the end of the film, the detective has taken the professor to school with special insights into his own flawed character. The main narrative posits the question of what happened to the young woman in the incident at Hillside Lake. But the deeper focus is on a provocative human reality of memory, self-identity, and, the word that does not seem to be in the professor's vocabulary: denial.

Philosophy professor Evan Birch (Guy Pearce) is married to Ellen (Minnie Driver) with young children. He views truth as relative. His student Anna (Alexandra Shipp) insists on talking about last semester. When high school cheerleader Joyce Bonner (Odeya Rush) goes missing, police detective Malloy (Pierce Brosnan) investigates and questions Evan after evidence surfaces of a connection.

Evan is an annoying protagonist. He's impossible to root for and early on, I decided not to root for him. He keeps talking to the police. He can't help but look guilty all the time. There is a way to make the truth a better battleground. It needs some more twists and turns. At the end of the day, his personal demons are compelling enough and the reveals are interesting enough. There are possible dramatic avenues that are left untraveled. It seems like a project with depth but not all of it translated from the book onto the screen.

Guy Pearce is a professor of philosophy at a local college. He is married to Minnie Driver and has two young children. When a college student goes missing, the police investigation in the person of Pierce Brosnan focuses on Pearce, revealing old secrets to him and Miss Driver.

I found it annoying. Not only was there to Lifetime Channel lighting, but there was an enormous sense of coyness in the way the truth of what had happened is revealed: Pearce is questioned by Brosnan or Miss Driver or his lawyer, Clark Gregg; he offers a response of poor memory, and a Pontius-like query of what is truth, and eventually we get to see the actual events unfold in flashback. There's no focus for viewpoint or sympathy, and I was left with a very clear feeling of being deliberately manipulated by a sophomore philosophy major who thought he was being oh, so clever.