Detective Lieutenant William Somerset is just six days off retiring when he becomes involved in the hunt for a serial killer. Aided by Detective David Mills, it soon becomes clear that the murders, although initially random, do have something in common - each of them is the representation of one of the seven deadly sins. Gluttony, for example, is represented by a man so overweight that he was unable to escape from his tormentor. Slowly, the two detectives begin to piece the evidence together, and Mills almost catches the serial killer, nick-named John Doe, at one point, only to narrowly escape with his life. Will they finally catch up with John Doe? Or is he destined to always be one step ahead?

Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt are at the top of the billing and really do carry the film between them. Neither are what I would call knock-out performances though. Freeman is great, as usual, but I've seen him in similar roles loads of times and I really don't think he brought anything new to the table here. Perhaps it was more impressive at the time, I don't know. Somerset is a rather typical jaded cop, looking forward to retirement, yet not knowing what he is going to do with the rest of his life. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the performance; in fact, Freeman is incredibly convincing - it's just that I've seen it before in other films and with other actors. His best scenes are most definitely with co-star Brad Pitt - the two of them clash and this adds a bit of colour to both of their characters.

Kevin Spacey deserves a mention as John Doe. He doesn't appear in the film until right towards the end, but it is so different from his usual 'everyman' roles that it really made an impression on me. He looks completely different and he gives a wonderfully creepy performance of a psychopath. Brilliant.

I was quite surprised to find that a good part of the film was actually quite hard to follow. The murders, although horrifying, aren't all that interesting - we don't know anything about the dead people or why they were killed - they are just dead people about whom we find out very little. Perhaps I have just read and watched too much of this genre, but even with the deadly sins element, I wasn't all that impressed. What makes the film so good is the ending - the last half an hour, which involves a chase and then a very nasty twist really does keep you on the edge of your seat. I just would have preferred not to wait until the last quarter of the film before I really felt entertained. I then went back and re-watched the first three quarters of the film, which all made a lot more sense the second time around; however, I really would prefer that the film had just grabbed me the first time.

The DVD is available from play.com for £5.99 (I bought mine from Sainsburys for £2.99, so worth looking there). There is also a two disc version available from play.com for just £3.94 - this has a lot more extras, so is probably worth buying if extras are your thing.