History Film / Mindhunters

->'''Harris:''' The point is that they're isolated, alone, and forgotten. That's what it's like to be in the mind of a sociopath]].

->'''Gabe:''' ''"The island. The middle of nowhere. They're all professionals. What's the point?"''
->'''Harris:''' ''"The point is that they're isolated, alone, and forgotten. That's what it's like to be in the mind of a [[TheSociopath sociopath]]."''

''Mindhunters'' (2004) is a murder mystery by the director Creator/RennyHarlin. It centers around a group of FBI's criminal profiler trainees who are sent to a remote island as part of a special training event designed by their instructor Jake Harris (Creator/ValKilmer). The trainees are supposed to catch a fictional serial killer called "The Puppeteer" but the situation quickly turns for the worse once a real killer starts picking off the trainees.

The plot of ''Mindhunters'' is much like Creator/AgathaChristie's novel ''Literature/AndThenThereWereNone''. The movie was poorly received and did not succeed at the box office.

Also starring Creator/JonnyLeeMiller, Music/LLCoolJ, and Creator/ChristianSlater.

** Christian Slater previously played a JD in ''{{Film/Heathers}}''.

** The first is Gabe, an outsider FBI agent who was abruptly sent to accompany the trainees on their mission, who is later found to have detailed files on the others and maps of the island hidden among his belongings. This causes the others to suspect him of being the killer in their midst, and it takes Gabe saving another person's life to prove his innocence. He was really there to investigate their supervisor, whose controversial methods didn't sit well with the higher-ups.

''Mindhunters'' (2004) is a murder mystery by the director Renny Harlin. It centers around a group of FBI's criminal profiler trainees who are sent to a remote island as part of a special training event designed by their instructor Jake Harris (Creator/ValKilmer). The trainees are supposed to catch a fictional serial killer called "The Puppeteer" but the situation quickly turns for the worse once a real killer starts picking off the trainees.

The plot of ''Mindhunters'' is much like Agatha Christie's novel ''Literature/AndThenThereWereNone''. The movie was poorly received and did not succeed at the box office.

* BlackDudeDiesFirst: Played with. [[spoiler:The first person to die is white. Gabe is believed to be the killer for most of the movie, and is one of only two survivors. AmbiguouslyBrown Nicole Willis survives for the majority of the movie.]]

** Ditto for [[spoiler: ValKilmer]]'s character, who doesn't much screen time either, dies offscreen, and gets unceremoniously posed like a puppet afterward.

''Mindhunters'' (2004) is a murder mystery by the director Renny Harlin. It centers around a group of FBI's criminal profiler trainees who are sent to a remote island as part of a special training event designed by their instructor Jake Harris (ValKilmer). The trainees are supposed to catch a fictional serial killer called "The Puppeteer" but the situation quickly turns for the worse once a real killer starts picking off the trainees.

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mindhunters_poster_7498.jpg]]

'''Gabe:''' Vince, either you're gonna hang there forever or you're gonna toss me your gun!\\

--> '''Gabe:''' "Vince, either you're gonna hang there forever or you're gonna toss me your gun!"
--> '''Vince:''' "I'm gonna watch you die."
--> '''Gabe:''' "Yeah, watch me die! And then what?! "

* [[EvidenceScavengerHunt Evidence Scavenger Hunt Montage]]: Two of them, actually.

* AttentionWhore: [[spoiler: Lucas killed his parents and continues his rampage over nothing more than infamy. Hell, the only real thing he was troubled by in his parents' murder is the cops not thinking he was the one who did it, unaware that the kid they handed gum to was the AxCrazy [[The Sociopath Sociopath]] behind the familicide.]]

* AttentionWhore: [[spoiler: Lucas killed his parents and continues his rampage over nothing more than infamy. Hell, the only real thing he was troubled by in his parents' murder is the cops not thinking he was the one who did it, unaware that the kid they handed gum to was the AxCrazy [[The Sociopath Sociopath]]]] behind the familicide.]]

* AttentionWhore: [[spoiler: Lucas killed his parents and continues his rampage over nothing more than infamy. Hell, the only real thing he was troubled by in his parents' murder is the cops not thinking he was the one who did it, unaware that the kid they handed gum to was the AxCrazy [[The Sociopath Sociopath]] behind the familicide.]]

* BodyHorror: Nicole's death. Turns out that [[HollywoodAcid ac]][[PoisonIsCorrosive id]] ingested via cigs can do a little more than contribute to lung cancer...

* BodyHorror: Rachel's death.

* AxCrazy: [[spoiler: Lucas Harper is one twisted son of a bitch, if his affinity for killing people both ForTheEvulz and in a way to prove his ''superiority''. His profile even says he's addicted to killing.]]

* {{Badass}}: Gabe.

* AgonyOfTheFeet: One of the female FBI agents smokes a cigarette, not knowing it has been laced with [[HollywoodAcid acid]], several drops of which eat through her boot. She briefly stomps her foot in pain [[OhCrap before realizing]] [[BodyHorror she has other problems]].

* PoisonIsCorrosive: Invoked during the HollywoodAcid (see above) sequence. [[spoiler: The cigarette reveals its potency first by blistering Nicole's fingers, and then we see several drops from it burn through her boot-clad foot. Right before the BodyHorror ensues, we see the cig itself melting into the floor.]]

* RedHerring: By the time the cast is whittled down to about five people, it's revealed that [[spoiler:Jake Harris, the supervisor,]] is the real killer when he begins to taunt them through the loudspeakers set up on the island. They find him inside his lair, [[spoiler:only to discover that the speakers were playing a pre-recorded type and Harris himself had been tortured to death.]]

* RedHerring: [[spoiler:Jake Harris, and arguably Gabe.]]

* TheProfiler: Only Harris is an actual profiler, the rest are trainees.
* {{Profiling}}: Both played straight and inverted - every person on the island is a profiler, and the murderer seems to know his victims quite well, enabling some particularly karmic deaths for the flawed criminologists.