WARNING: THIS COMMENTARY CONTAINS INPORTANT SPOILERS. SO PLEASE STOP READING NOW IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED THE MOVIE. The movie comes across as pulpy in the first 10 minutes (I didn't know it came from a book and TV series when I watched it). The characters of the supposed leads, Masaharu Fukuyama and Ko Shibasaki, are one-dimensional throughout. Thankfully, Shin'ichi Tsutsumi and Yasuko Matsuyuki brought depth and weight. Tsutsumi especially. He draws you in with his portrayal of his character. It's enigmatic and convincing. A very fine actor indeed.The movie shines when it delves into the human drama and the contest of wits and wills between the two male protagonists. The mountain climbing segment is superb, a magnificent allegory of the intellectual power-play between the two men. ***SPOILERS*** Unfortunately, the movie didn't succeed fully on the logical brilliance it is premised on. There seems to be two serious flaws. First is the identification of the body through matching the fingerprints found on the bicycle with those from the hotel the victim stayed in. Certainly real-life police would know that is inconclusive. They would certainly confirm only with fingerprints on official records.Secondly, a man of Ishigami's brilliance could certainly foretell that the likelihood of Kanaoka accepting his sacrifice is low to start with, or at least there is no guarantee of his plan's success. And Kanaoka would hear about it from news whether Yukawa tells her about it or not. And for Ishigami to take an innocent life is totally inconsistent with his character, no matter how powerful and overwhelming love is. The movie would have been great if not for these flaws. But it is still a pretty good movie principally because of Tsutsumi's performance and the human drama. I would have given it at least 8/10 if not for the logic flaws.

First of all let me admit that I haven't read the book "Devotion of Suspect X" upon which this film was based. Apart from few loose ends in the movie about the characters (could be director's fault or not), this movie fed me with surprises one after another. Loved the way the story unfolded with these suspense elements which make me feel shame that I haven't read the book. The suspense at the Climax was a shock and is totally unsuspected . This movie is copied/inspired/plagiarized in India with the name "Dhrishyam" which is again going to be inspired to another language from the same country.

Judging by the title, you'd think "Suspect X" refers to a detective story with a shady, unknown suspect that the protagonists struggle to identify. Not so; from the start the viewer is shown exactly who the murderer is, and despite a supposedly genius cover up, the police have a "hunch" that is exactly correct within five minutes of finding the body, and spend most of the film trying to prove it (completely ignoring the possibility of other suspects despite a total lack of evidence).If you're a fan of the Galileo TV series you may be disappointed by the lack of complicated pseudo-science in the film's mystery. Likewise, the chemistry between Yukawa and Detective Utsumi takes a back seat. What the film is really about is a character drama between a single mother, a reclusive Maths genius, and Yukawa.Single mother Hanaoka divorced her abusive husband and fled to establish her own business. But her ex-husband catches up to her, and after a three-way struggle between mother, daughter and husband, he winds up dead. Enter Ishigami, Hanaoka's reclusive next door neighbour who hears the struggle. In the aftermath of the fight, he approaches the family and proposes to help them create an alibi. Using his genius mathematics he covers it up and tells Hanaoka how to perfectly avoid police suspicion- until Yukawa gets involved. And old friend of Ishigami's, Yukawa is suspicious but more than anything else he is driven to find out his friend's motivation. This forms the main drive of the film.... and that part is pretty good. The character of Ishigami is genuinely well played and intriguing. His interactions with Hanaoka and Yukawa are convincing and help to carry the movie.There's only one real problem with the film- but it's a big one. It's stupid. At the end of the day, when you actually stop and think about Ishigami's "genius" plan doesn't make sense. It involves a second completely pointless murder, and it turns out that the original body was disposed of in a way that the police never found it. Despite this, Ishigami decides that it's necessary to kill someone else and dump their body in plain sight as part of his bizarre master plan. On top of this, we're supposed to believe that the police force devotes dozens and dozens of officers to investigating the murder of a deadbeat divorcée.Your enjoyment of the film will boil down entirely to how much you're willing to ignore. If you can switch your brain off and just enjoy the acting then the interaction between Ishigama, Yukawa and Hanaoka will keep you interested. Otherwise you'll be left frowning and saying "Hold on a minute..." as the credits start to roll.

I have mulled over the story for a bit, and while I'm fairly convinced in the way it presented itself to stay true to its theme, I can't help but feel that I'm still suckered into feeling the same way as the cops do, in being made to see things from one singular point of view just because the logic points itself that way conveniently, rather than to peek around the corner and see it under a different light. But if you believe and buy into its idea and rationale, then Suspect X's story would appeal to you definitely.Which is the power of love, which by itself causes one to do irrational things. I won't refute the point though, because otherwise we won't see florists making a killing during the already-so-commercialized-it's-meaningless Valentine's day. To make its point, we have someone who's highly logical in manners, demeanour and genetic makeup, to undergo a transformation due to being struck by cupid's arrow. But does this irrationality extend to assisting and becoming an accessory to murder? One can only wonder.That in itself is the issue that one has to buy into, in order to enjoy the film. A murder is committed by a single mother and child, and because he is smitten with his love for that single mother, mathematics genius and professor Tetsuya Ishigami (Shinichi Tsutsumi) helps them by applying deep logic into the creation of alibis, and instructing them with pinpoint accuracy, their behaviour, answers and such when the police come knocking on their door. There's a twist to it all of course, but it's more akin to the treatment as seen in Confessions of Pain, where the extent of the killings had its hand shown early in the film, so those looking for a whodunnit, or an investigative crime drama where the investigators get stumped, would be expecting a totally different film altogether.Instead, the story goes behind and looks at motivation. The deed is done, but the mystery here is the Why, and here's where help to the cops, come in the form of expert physicist Galileo Yukawa (Fukuyama Masaharu). The opening scene that set the stage had actually piqued my interest, as we see a classroom experiment seamlessly transition into a full scale, military styled showcase. Unfortunately, that's just one of the better parts of the film in terms of using scientific knowledge to help solve crimes. Unlike L in The Death Note series, the intelligence quotient here has some real world links (hey it's physics after all), and our hero has zero affiliation with law enforcement, helping only because of the challenge the situation posed. Don't expect some heavy theorems being thrown at your face, as the story smartly avoids situations to alienate its audience.In fact, what it boiled down to, was succinctly summarized in one line where two friendly adversaries face off with each other across a road. The question posed was which side each of them was on, whether one would prefer to create the perfect, unsolvable puzzle, or to be the one who can solve the unsolvable puzzle, where for both there is an answer to. To that, the setting of the stage, and the throwing of the gauntlet, I have to salute how director Hiroshi Nishitani had it all planned out and delivered.Something that disturbed me a little during the film, was the not too subtle sexual discrimination against the female cop Kaoru Utsumi. A prime suspect is referred to as sexy (though I have to admit Yasuko HanaokaXXX does look attractive, being cast as a bar hostess), but the more surprising one, was how the cops in the department were pushing Kaoru around, often referring her to do some menial tasks like fetching coffee, or ridiculed against when she came across as unprepared. There wasn't any statement made about it, but happened more as a matter-of-fact. Perhaps to echo some sentiments that such discrimination still happens?As mentioned, it took me a while to mull upon the film, looking at it from a separate angle than I first had when the end credits roll. I may not had subscribed to the plausibility of how love can affect oneself to do silly things, to the extreme as that in the story, but I suppose it can happen given many crimes of passion that we read about from time to time, and with the little nugget of wonders that happen at sporadic intervals throughout, I'm come to the verdict that Suspect X is still worth your while. Just chuck that expectation of a whodunnit-mystery- thriller at the door.