German director Wim Wenders returns to America, which he swore he'd never do after Paris, Texas (he was right! ), for this muddled conspiracy thriller which works in stretches but not as a whole. The mystery in which a producer (Bill Pullman) of violent films is abducted and hides with Mexican mobsters, while his kidnapping is overseen via a huge surveillance camera by ex-NASA scientist Gabriel Byrne is very contrived. Although the film is full of provocative ideas, some of them clever, you just don't care about the story or characters. Nor do you have to be a philistine to think that its meaning, like its plot, is unfathomable. Andie MacDowell looks nice and so, thanks to Pascal Rabaud's cinematography, does the film, which sounds good too, with music by Ry Cooder on the soundtrack.

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