LIKE MINDS/A REAL BRAIN TEASER

Excellently acted with two London lads absolutely convincing as swots with a taste for the perverse at a remote Australian boarding school. So why hasn't it had greater acclaim?

DVD on sale from January 10,2008.

It is a psychological thriller with bodies piling up in a small campus community like discarded text books and that can stretch credulity for anyone afraid to let their mind run free.

But Live Minds is not claiming to be forensic science, just entertainment, and the speed with which the locals die contributes enormously to the amusement of the film without lessening the horror.

Even more diverting is the energy and conviction of all the players in between the deaths.

Here there are telling portraits of the two loners - Eddie Redmaybe and Tom Sturridge - first meeting at school and bitterly building a critical friendship.

Of a forensic psychologist - a heart-warming Toni Collette - intelligently probing the chilling Redmayne’s mind to determine whether he murdered his friend Sturridge or was actually villainously framed for a suicide by the victim, while fending off the amorous case detective.

And, finally, of the community elders, including the boys' parents, all linked together by a Freemason-style society which has turned their town into a nest of mysterious factions to rival Twin Peaks.

It is all brilliantly shot – that is the film, not the victims (although all the murders are imaginatively carried out) – and it is driven by enough utterly unpredictable plot twists to confuse the most hardened thriller fan to the last frame.

So why hasn’t it had a larger release since it was complete in 2006? Why hasn’t it garnered more praise?

It would take a forensic scientist of film to provide the conclusive answer but you can examine the evidence and make your own decision at home.

The DVD from Lionsgate is now on sale for £15.99, complete with details on the making of the film, various deleted scenes and commentary from the writer / director Gregory Read.

Good luck with tracking down the culprits.

By the way, rising Redmayne has been very busy ever since Like Mind. He has gone on to make The Good Shepherd with Nick Nolte; the soon to be released Savage Grace with Julianne Moore; Elizabeth (as Thomas Babington); and features in three forthcoming films, The Other Bolyen Girl (as William Stafford), Blue Hankerchief (he’s one of three friends on a Louisiana road trip) and Powder Blue (sharing New Year’s Eve with three crazy Los Angelenos).

It is a bonus to see him here finding his voice.

Meanwhile Tom Sturridge, son of London director Charles Sturridge (currently working on Bronte), will soon be seen as a pianist in Maestro, set in 1960s Australia.

Filed January 14, 2008.