It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

A college student Joyce Bonner (Odeya Rush) goes missing and police detective Malloy (Pierce Brosnan) keys in on Philosophy professor Evan Birch (Guy Pearce) who is known to have affairs with students. This really needed more suspects, but we have only one and I couldn't make up my mind if he was guilty or not. He acted so innocent and uncaring that I thought it couldn't be him. Yet, maybe that is what they wanted me to think. Yet there was no one else. His wife Ellen (Minnie Driver) was coming to believe their 5-yrs ago in another town was closing in on her and she doesn't want to move again. Detective Malloy tells Professor Evan that they both have something in common: they both seek the truth. I liked Pierce Brosnan as the detective and kind of hope he will do more of this kind of character in other movies. Hey, we need a good guy in movies once in a while. I just couldn't read Guy Pearce as the professor as everything told me he was innocent............yet.........there was no one else.Notables: Alexandra Shipp as Ana, a student who had some kind of history with the professor; Clark Gregg as Paul, Evan's lawyer. The title indicates a spinning man, but Evan wasn't shown spinning any which way. Yes, he may have felt the spinning inside. The last scene shows the mouse the family caught spinning on a wheel. Kind of contrived I thought. Will you be surprised when you see the ending? I was. (5/10)Violence: No. Sex: No. Nudity: No. Humor: No. Language: Yes, near the end. Rating: C

"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.

Kind of psychological thought ,, but it's new in the story teller for an teacher problem with their student when they facing some sexual diorsder

The movie kept me in constant questioning about who the killer was. However, the end left me confused and felt rushed and blended in a way that couldn't be followed. It was an interesting concept, poorly executed. There were too many flashbacks and too much future and present footage that was blended in a way that was hard to be followed. There was a lot of questions unanswered. This film isn't amazing, but it isn't terrible. It's just an average movie.