I rented this because it was written by Ross Thomas, and I'm a huge fan of his novels. I wanted to see how his ideas were put on the screen. The story line and plot twists are very Thomas, but the characters seemed a little one-dimensional. He is great at building characters in his novels, but there just isn't enough time to do that in a movie. I needed to see vulnerability in each character, when all that was given was cold calculation (which even the hardest CIA agent is NOT).<br /><br />The sex scenes seemed forced, and I bet that they weren't in the original script. Thomas doesn't need to use sex to relate characters to each other, but it's a quick 'gimmie' for the film.<br /><br />I recommend this movie to any Ross Thomas fan, especially given that it was probably the last thing he wrote before he died. Otherwise, watch it if you're into mystery, but know that it's not very thrilling, and can move slowly at times.