After over a decade in genre movies that saw him progress from directing the fifth entry in New Line's Nightmare On Elm Street franchise in 1989 to helming their 1998 summer sci-fi blockbuster, Lost In Space ­ via Joel Silver's Predator 2 in 1990 ­ Stephen Hopkins is turning his back on testosterone violence and CGI effects. Based on Claude Miller's 1981 thriller Garde A Vue, itself adapted from John Wainwright's 1979 novel "Brainwash," Under Suspicion is a tense, claustrophobic two-hander dealing with issues of truth, guilt, trust and morality.

Star Gene Hackman had reputedly wanted to make the project ever since he saw the French-language original, and enlisted the help of co-star Morgan Freeman to co-produce it with him. Here, he plays Henry Hearst, a powerful local lawyer who is pulled in for police questioning before an important social function during the carnival season in San Sebastián. The previous day, Hearst had found the body of a child who had been raped and killed, but the police have found certain inconsistencies they'd like to clear up.

Hearst and investigating officer Benezet (Freeman) are acquaintances who go back years, but what starts as a friendly line of questioning soon turns ugly when it becomes clear that Hearst has something to hide. Benezet's impetuous young sidekick Felix (Thomas Jane) believes he is guilty of the murder, and maybe two more, and together they embark on an interrogation that pulls Hearst's supposedly respectable life to pieces. "For me," said Hopkins, "this script became so very personal. I was trying, through the relation ships between Hackman and Freeman, and among the other leads, to probe certain truths about love, about rivalry, about compromise and its costs ­ truths that were bursting from the screenplay."

formidable ally in Miller, who has given Under Suspicion his blessing. "I must admit that I didn't expect to see such a subtle film," he says. "The film closely follows what we did at the time... It is very true to the original in meaning and tone, and you sense that there was a great love, a great affinity for the film from the outset."

Surprisingly, Miller even goes so far as to defend the film's more graphic tone. "What struck me ­ and this is what really differentiates European and Hollywood cinema ­ is that everything that was implicit in the original becomes explicit in the new version," he said. "I was touched, since it displayed a deep understanding of the subject ­ an understanding that was heartfelt, and not only intellectual ­ a great sensitivity, [and] a wonderful desire to reveal things that might be too ambiguous. My film was less mysterious."

Steve Grayson