Gregory Hoblit's stylish crime thriller opens with Anthony Hopkins's aeronautical engineer shooting his unfaithful wife (Embeth Davidtz). The cat-and-mouse games begin when Hopkins decides to plead not guilty and defend himself in court, pitting his wits against Ryan Gosling's assistant DA, who has a 97 per cent successful prosecution record. This is Gosling's last case before he takes a job in the lucrative private sector and it looks like a formality (there's even a confession), but the twist here is that the arresting officer (Billy Burke) was Davidtz's lover. Hoblit (Primal Fear) is an old hand at this sort of thing, and Hopkins and Gosling spark nicely off each other (just try to ignore Hopkins's inconsistent accent). Also representing Britain in the Anglo-American cast is Rosamund Pike (Die Another Day), who plays a cool-as-ice lawyer grooming Gosling for his new career in company law, and Fiona Shaw as a sharp-tongued, dry-witted judge. There's nothing particularly new here and some of the plot contortions border on the preposterous, but fans of twisting courtroom thrillers will find it an entertaining diversion.