Palmetto

Palmetto has a satisfyingly deceptive plot that ultimately takes one too many turns.

Palmetto follows the rules of film noir so slavishly that it's tough not to like it just on its own dopey, headstrong merit.

The script, based on British pulp writer James Hadley Chase's novel "Just Another Sucker," is a muddle, and no actors, no matter how compelling or talented, could make its silly dialogue work.

What begins as a lush, pulpy gothic laced with intrigue quickly spins into a convoluted web of over engineered and preposterous plot twists.

Surprises are reserved for the final half-hour, at which point the slow-paced Palmetto has long since fossilized as a routine exercise in ceiling-fan, sweaty-forehead noir-by-numbers.

It's been said that a thriller is only as good as its chief villain, and, in the same way, most noirs are only as good as their suckers. Palmetto has a good sucker but not much else.

Revelations of betrayals, faked identities and double-crosses come in waves in the last half-hour of Palmetto, but by then, the film has raised the one question it can't answer: Who cares?