‘Mindhunters’ is a crime-thriller movie, released in the year 2004 which is directed by Renny Harlin, who is a renowned film director, producer and screenwriter from Finland. The main characters in the movie Mindhunters are Kathryn Morris playing Sara Moore, LL Cool J playing Gabe Jensen, Jonny Lee Miller playing Lucas Harper, Patricia Velásquez playing Nicole Willis, Clifton Collins Jr. playing Vince Sherman, Christian Slater playing JD Reston, Val Kilmer playing Jake Harris, Will Kemp playing as Rafe Perry, etc.,
Introduction to the movie
At the beginning of the movie, a girl named Saara is dozing off in the dead of night in her car, when she is woken up by a sudden tapping on her glass mirror by someone. It is actually her accomplice JD, who along with Saara is from the FBI, a US investigative agency and going on a mission.
Saara goes through some pictures of a crime scene, and they discuss the crime which they have to investigate. They reach a spot near a house, which they have to raid, as some girls seem to be trapped there, along with a killer. When they raid the premises, they find nothing, but some strange things here and there, before they hear a girl scream. They go further down to the basement, where they find two dead girls in a bathtub, along with a dead man with a cigarette still burning in his hand.
Saara tries to contact someone on the walkie-talkie, informing him about the dead people. Just then someone comes and attacks Saara with a sharp object. A gunfight ensues between JD and that man, and in the process, they all kill each other.
After some time, the lights in the house turn on, and we get to know that this was all part of the training for Saara and JD, who are undergoing training as profilers in the FBI. However, their instructor Jake Harris is not satisfied with their performance and instructs them to be more alert, and intuitive in the future. He ridicules them for not picking up the hints, like empty cigarette packs and a car outside, which actually pointed to the fact, that there could have been another suspect in the house.
In the next scene, Harris is seen with other potential profilers in a room, where he is explaining to them, the possibilities which they may encounter in the future while investigating any case. He explains to them that he is preparing them for such eventualities in the future and his methods are seen as crazy ones by some of his seniors. Jake also throws light on their next assignment, where they all have to travel to a small island off the coast of Virginia, known as Oneiga, which is used by the FBI and the military, for training purposes. Harris informs them that they will be sent to the island, to test their capabilities and teamwork, and how they survive on the island in testing conditions.
Before that, they visit a bar to enjoy the evening, and some of them also practice their profiling skills, by telling about other visitors’ behaviors and habits. But Vince, who is an ex-cop and always in a wheelchair, tells Saara that probably they are not going to consider him for the position as a profiler, as he himself has read the recommendation list of the instructor Jake Harris, at his office. Vince also informs Saara, that she also does not feature in the recommended list of the profilers.
The group of the seven profilers, along with Jake Harris, head towards the island Oneiga in a helicopter. They are also joined by detective Gabe Jenson, who is the resident profiler and has been assigned the duty by the seniors, to check how Harris works. But as per Harris, Gabe will be there just to observe things, and not participate in any of the exercises.
They reach the island, which is just a simulation of a town and has been built by the navy seals for the war game exercises. It comprises a full-fledged town, having dummy markets, shopping areas, food courts, roads, traffic signals, etc., and the military uses it for training the cadres. The island has an office fitted with all sorts of gadgetry and infrastructure, to be used by the trainees. Harris takes them through every part of the island and shows them the area and the things, that they can utilize there.
Harris informs the team, that they will be isolated and forgotten by the outside world, and they will have to manage their survival by themselves. The team is expected to prepare the profile of a serial killer, who has supposedly, committed a murder on the island. All the team members have special individual talents, which they are expected to utilize on the island. JD is being assigned the job to head the team and oversee the operations.
Harris leaves and the team starts to know each other better, in order to make a good team. Saara and Lucas start to share a bond, as both are unhappy in their own lives. Saara reveals to Lucas that she is sad because Harris is not going to select her as a profiler, whereas Lucas tells her that he has lost his parents in his childhood.
In due course of time, it is revealed that every one of them has some special talent or skill, which they prove from time to time. One day, Saara finds a dead cat hanging, which has been embedded with a broken watch, depicting the time as 10 o’clock, which makes them believe, that it is some warning sign for them.
The next morning, they start to explore the island, in order to find any clue about the crime scene, for which they are here as profilers. They enter a dummy restaurant, and find the simulation of the exact ambience there, with dummies of people, food and accessories. Even a dummy cigarette machine has been kept there, which tempts Nicole as she is addicted to cigarettes.
However, when they all keep searching in all directions, Vince alerts everyone towards something. When they all go inside, they find a simulation of a murder with a dummy body hanging from the ceiling, and they start their investigations into it. Vince rues the fact, that they were not allowed to bring their guns with them.
JD, who is in charge of the entire team, starts to look for clues nearby, and just then an alarm is set on, which plays some song on the clock in the room. JD presses the stop button to stop it, but this triggers some mechanism that goes on for some time, and ultimately results in an opening of the mouth of a cylinder, containing liquid nitrogen. The mouth of the cylinder opens towards JD and releases the liquid nitrogen, while his entire body gets frozen down, thereby killing him. When they check the time, it is exactly 10 o’clock, matching with the time the broken watch from the dead cat had shown.
The team now understands that JD has been murdered, by someone present on the island itself. When they are discussing this, they see another broken watch, depicting the time 12 o’clock. The trainees discuss that it is another hint that someone may be killed at this time. All of them rush towards the wooden bridge, which has a boat tied to it, in order to escape from there. But when they are midway on the bridge, the sensors on the bridge trigger a bomb, which was fitted with the boat, and the boat is blasted into pieces.
While Vince is watching from the distance, all of the other members are thrown into the water. However, all of them swim back, while Lucas saves Saara, who was about to get drowned. They are confused about whether Harris wants to kill them, but are not sure, as Harris does not seem to be that sort of a person according to the team.
Vince takes out his gun from the wheelchair to everyone’s surprise and tells everyone that he has brought his gun for safety purposes. Everyone rushes towards the ammunition room and takes with them whatever they can. Saara takes out the broken pieces resulting from the blast from the body of Lucas and notices the time in the clock as 11:40, which means only 20 minutes left.
When they are all at the dining table having coffee, and discussing about the murder, Lucas comes there and points his gun toward Gabe. Lucas tells everyone that he has found some maps of the island in Gabe’s room. All of them take out their guns, point toward Gabe and ask him to surrender. The area maps are not supposed to be in anyone’s possession, since it is a training camp. But just then Gabe loses conscience and falls down, but after that everyone in the room also gets unconscious and falls down.
As soon as Gabe comes to his senses, he gets handcuffed by Bobby. Others too, start to gain consciousness and start to blame Gabe for JD’s death. Gabe tries to defend himself but no one listens to him. They also try to enquire from him what had he mixed in their coffee so that everybody got unconscious. Gabe argues that it was Rafe who made the coffee.
When they try to confront Rafe, who is sitting on the chair with his head on the table, they get shocked to find Rafe’s head coming off his body with a slight touch. Saara tells them that there is no blood left in him, as he has been killed by draining away the entire blood from his body. They find some numbers written by blood on the glass there, and try to figure out what that means.
At the same time, the team notices a couple of watches depicting a time of 6 o’clock. They conclude that it means that there will be two casualties at the time, shown in the watch. When Lucas checks his watch, it shows 5:45, which means there are only 15 minutes left for another spate of killings.
They all tie Gabe with the pipe fitted on the wall, and themselves go out to check the numbers written on the wall. However, Vince is left with Gabe and instructed by the team to keep a watch on him, while Gabe is given 15 minutes to provide them with all the information he has about the killings.
While the future profilers are trying to figure out the mystery, they come to the conclusion that it has got to do something with lights. They put the lights off, and find some glowing signs on the jackets of each other. After taking off their jackets, they find the letters A, O, R and T marked on them by some glowing powder, but they are not able to solve the meaning of these letters. Bobby checks his watch which shows 6 o’clock.
Here, Vince hears some sound outside, and ventures out to find who is outside the room. Just then, the electric wires from the roof come off. At the same time, the water pipes burst due to intense water pressure. This results in the current from the broken live wires running all over the place, due to the electricity getting in touch with water.
Vince just manages to grab some small pipe with difficulty, leaving his wheelchair behind. Gabe asks Vince to give him the gun so that he can free himself from handcuffs and switch the power off from the circuit breaker. Vince first hesitates, but after understanding that he has no other alternative left, he throws the gun at Gabe. After getting the gun, Gabe first sets himself free and then fires bullets into the wall to make holes in it. He steps his foot into these holes and reaches the main switchboard. Just when Vince is about to slip off the pipe, Gabe manages to turn the switch off.
Other members of the team also reach there, and Vince tells them that Gabe has saved his life. Bobby manages to turn off the water pressure plates using his technical skills, but a booby trap goes off, and he gets hit by arrows which are planted by the killer. Then they find some more jackets again, and so the team tries to figure out the codes written on them, along with the codes found on the jackets previously.
The entire team tries to decipher the meaning of the alphabets found on them. Ultimately, Vince explains to them that the letters mean Croatoan, and tells a story, that this island exists on the northern banks of Northern Carolina. The island is one of those island sites, which were the first islands settled by the Europeans. In the 16th century, a ship containing refugees was set off by the Englishmen, to these islands to colonize them for the Englishmen. Over 100 refugees settled themselves on Roanoke Island, but when a supply ship came to the island after two years, it found no trace of any mankind nor any clue about them, as the entire Island got vanished from there. Only a single word was seen carved in a tree, and that word was Croatoan.
They all come to the conclusion, that the killer has marked the jackets with the letters of the word Croatoan, in order to draw parallels with the island that got vanished, and which is what he wants to do with this island too. They start to investigate every aspect there, by using all the resources present on the island, which included a fully computerized forensics lab and a database facility. They start to investigate the fluorescent material found on the jackets and the blood samples, wherever they had found them.
Some blood sample is found in Rafe’s nail, which implied that Rafe had a scuffle with the killer before being killed by him. The trainees test the blood samples of all team members present there, and wait for the results. Everyone gets shocked to find that the samples taken from the crime scene, are getting matched with Saara, although Lucas supports Saara and does not believe she can do this.
Nicole gets angry and wants to kill Saara, but other members stop her. She goes out in anger pointing a gun at everyone, saying that there is a killer amongst them, and she wants to get out of that place. Saara tells other members that the killer is doing this, to prove his superiority and there is nothing personal. As per Saara, the killer has in fact been profiling the trainee profilers and has killed others, only after thoroughly analyzing their skills and weaknesses.
Saara adds that there is nothing random here, and everyone got killed due to their weakness. She explains, that JD got killed because he always stayed ahead and on the forefront. Rafe was mad after coffee only, and bobby always had a knack for fixing things. As Saara is explaining this, Nicole finds a cigarette and can’t resist the urge to have it. But, it is in fact, an acid-filled cigarette, which soon kills her, after she smokes it. As they are confused about all this, they hear the voice of Harris mocking them for being losers, through the speakers all over the island.
They try to go out to find Harris, by following the voice from the speakers, but Gabe ties Vince’s wheelchair with the table as Vince refuses to go out. Saara advises Vince to hide for some time, but Vince is uneasy because he has no bullets left. Gabe, Saara and Lucas venture out to find Harris, while Vince enters a morgue and gets himself new bullets from Rafe’s dead body, as his gun had no bullets left.
Although they get a feeling that Harris has done all this, however after some time, they find Harris along with two FBI agents, dead in a room. Harris was hung from the ceiling by the wires, just like a puppet who is attached to strings. This meant that Harris had not left the island, even though he pretended so, but was killed later by someone else. They see three watches on Harris’s hand showing the current time, meaning that three people are to be killed right now.
Gabe and Lucas point guns at each other, as no one is trustworthy in these conditions there. Suddenly the lights go off, and they rush outside and fire indiscriminately in all directions, trying to kill the killer who may be hiding somewhere. Saara hides below a bus, but Lucas is down from the bullets from Gabe. While Gabe tries to find Saara on the bus, she runs away from there.
Here, Vince while trying to board the lift, sees someone and shoots at him, but his gun is actually rigged, and the bullet gets fired from the back of his gun towards him only, thus killing him instantly. When Saara reaches the 2nd floor, she sees Vince’s dead body, and she comments that Vince got killed due to his passion for keeping his gun with him all the time. Just then Gabe reaches there and hits Saara, as both Saara and Gabe blame each other for the killings.
Suddenly, Lucas gets in the picture, and both Gabe and Lucas have a fight. After hitting and injuring each other, both of them fall from a height. As a result, both of them land on the stairs below and are badly injured. Gabe tries to get up but Saara hits him with a cylinder and helps Lucas to get up from the stairs. Saara is relieved that Lucas is fine when Lucas shows her his bulletproof jacket which saved his life.
Saara tells Lucas that she had set the main clock 15 minutes backward, since the killer always plays with time and thus would definitely have tried to set it right. As per Saara, the killer wanted all the trainees to know about the time of their death, as he got pleasure from their suffering. Saara reveals that she has put that fluorescent powder on the clock, which was found on the jackets of everyone. She did this as the powder will get stuck on the killer’s fingers while adjusting the time of the clock.
Saara examines the unconscious Gabe’s hands, through the sensor but there is no glow. However, when she accidentally takes the sensor toward Lucas, who is checking his own hands, the powder on his hands is prominently visible and glowing.
It means that it is Lucas who is the actual culprit and the mastermind of the killings. Lucas confesses to his crimes in front of Saara and reveals that he has been a murderer since childhood and has even killed his parents. Lucas tells Saara that when they were busy profiling others, he was studying them and their habits and weaknesses. Lucas continues that, showing sympathy to them at some times and scaring them the other times was a part of his strategy to trick them into his trap. He says to Saara that getting prey is hard, but you guys were quite easy to overpower mentally.
Lucas reveals that the coffee break worked as a good breather for him to strategize things. He goes on to tell Saara, that all of her team members were so predictable since they didn’t work on their weaknesses or didn’t improve upon them and that is why they lost their lives.
Saara tries to run since Lucas is now after her life, but Lucas finds her and pushes her into the water. Lucas tries to drown her, as he knows that she is scared of water. Saara resists him and manages to push Lucas also into the water. Saara takes a gun out of the pocket of a drowned body in the water. Both Lucas and Saara start shooting each other in the water, but the bullets do not reach them. Both go upwards and wait for each other underneath the water to come out so that they can fire bullets at the other.
After some time, Lucas needs to come out of the water due to suffocation, but Saara resists and stays in the water. As soon as Lucas comes out, Saara fires a bullet that hits Lucas. Still, he comes out and tells Saara that every piece of evidence is against her as they have her fingerprints everywhere.
Just then, Gabe, who is still alive reaches there and throws a watch towards Lucas, and tells him that his time is up. Lucas tries to pick up the gun, but Saara shoots and kills him.
In the ending scene, they are seen flagging down a helicopter, and Saara asks Gabe whether she can make a good profiler. Gabe asks Saara, when is the situation under control, to which Saara replies, that when they reach home and the movie ends there.
