At times, this movie is mesmerizing and mysterious, a really good story about a serial killer who targets blind women. But at other times it is unbearably stupid and overdone. Andy Garcia is OK part of the time and terrible when he portrays any strong emotion, like anger. He and Uma Thurman are good together at times, like when she is freaked out over the party and Andy comforts her. This is a "B" movie but it aspires to be an "A" flick. John Malkovich is wonderful, at times, as he often is, when given almost nothing to work with. Lots of the time the story just feel empty. Gets worse as it goes on.

The pounding monsoon here in Vancouver today reminded me of the slightly forgotten, excellently dour serial killer mystery Jennifer 8. In a torrential downpour, the body of a blind girl is discovered in a scrapyard, in one of the film's best sequences. Freddy Ross, sergeant on scene (Lance Henriksen in a rambunctious, really underrated performance) calls in his old friend, big city Detective John Berlin (a haggard Andy Garcia), to help investigate. Henriksen and Garcia strike up a believable buddy rapport that becomes the backbone of the story, and is nice to watch. They suspect that someone is specifically preying on blind girls, when they find related cases, and they must narrow down suspects before he strikes again. They find a lead in blind Helena (Uma Thurman) a cautious, fragile girl who may be able to, help them, and who John very quickly falls in love with. Soon the killer orchestrates clues that lead straight to John, and he has to deal with an obnoxious internal investigator (John Malkovich in full Christmas ham mode, showing up for maybe five minutes but chewing scenery like the Cookie Monster). Time starts to run out as the killer gets closer. Now, I guessed the identity of the killer halfway through the film, but that's mostly because I know the actor quite well and could just tell by certain distinct features, but don't worry, the surprise should remain intact for you. There's nice work from Lenny Von Dohlen, Kathy Baker, Graham Beckel, Bob Gunton and Kevin Conway too. The film relies on its two leads to get the job done, and they don't disappoint. It also has an advantage in its gloomy, rainy northern setting (much of it was filmed here), which gives that distinct atmosphere that these type of movies need to succeed. Well done.

The prime character in 'Jennifer Eight' is blind but everyone in the film might as well be blind, deaf and mute to be able to miss the obvious indications that lead right to the killer from the moment that individual is on screen. Everyone seems to look the other way to avoid the person who turns out to be the killer maybe because the movie still has an hour or so to pad out, the time that it becomes crystal clear to the audience who that person is.The movie stars Andy Garcia as a cop with a movie cop name – John Berlin. He goes to investigate a murder, which leads to him digging through the trash to find body parts. He finds a woman's severed hand and after an analysis turns up that the woman was blind because the fingertips have worn down from reading Braille and that the hand spent some time in a freezer.He is soon on the trail of a killer who stalks blind women because several blind women have been killed in the area with that same M.O. Garcia interviews Helena (Uma Thurman), the woman's roomy who is herself blind. She and the cop fall in love not because of a mutual attraction rather because they are a man and a woman thrown together in a movie in which her life will eventually be in danger and he will have to save the woman he loves.Thurman is usually the luminous element to any movie but here her character is so pitiful that she doesn't need protection so much as she just needs a big old hug. The movie might want you to have sympathy for her but it doesn't back out when opportunity arises to have her slip nude into a bathtub while the killer skulks around her apartment.'Jennifer Eight' almost counts down the minutes to the next inevitable move. The movie is set up in a series of unbelievably predictable vignette so familiar to this genre. The movie is one part thriller, one part love story, one part police procedural written by people who obviously believe that you can't have one without the other.

I would not have seen this movie, if i hadn't seen some of the reviewers calling it an 'Under-rated gem'. This movie claims to be of the Crime/Drama/Mystery genre. Here are some of my thoughts on the movie. John Berlin(Garcia)discovers a derelict's body in a landfill site who is suspected "to have offed himself with a knife". He also finds a brassiere & a hand. I was surprised that Berlin was going after the hand & the brassiere instead of the derelict who was in one piece. Garcia ends up falling in love(quite unsurprisingly!!) with the blind, Helena (Uma Thurman, as great as usual). And obviously the serial killer is after Helena, and Berlin is hell bound on protecting her. That takes care of the drama. As for the mystery, if you follow the movie close enough you get a good idea who the killer is, 24 minutes into the movie. And you know who it is for sure, another 20 minutes later. An hour later, the movie just abruptly ended. It seemed so rushed (i mean come on, i had to wait another hour, to know why the serial killer, kills and to know how he will be caught) and i found myself saying *beep*, who killed the *beep* derelict ?? So watch this movie for the good acting. Garcia, Thurman,Henriksen & Malkovitch put up a great show. It was a treat to watch St.Anne, interrogate, Berlin.