A stupid direct-to-video procedural about an alcoholic cop investigating an apparent serial killer with the supposed twist being that the cop has psychic powers, "After Alice," otherwise known by the dumber title of "Eye of the Killer," stars Kiefer Sutherland, and he's as atrocious as usual here. There was no need for all of the "Alice in Wonderland" references, either, except to waste my time, as I've been tracking down a bunch of movies inspired by Lewis Carroll's Alice books.
The White Rabbit is represented by a white-haired and clothed runner who steals Sutherland's liquor at the grocery store. Sutherland chases him through a small door hole and ends up falling down another hole and knocking himself unconscious. There's a "smiling" cat outside his apartment window. He's investigating a "Jabberwocky" serial-killer case, where the Joker--I mean, totally unrelated murderer--leaves playing cards at his crime scenes, the prime suspect owns a copy of Carroll's text, and whose first victim was named Alice. Sutherland's boss is a Lieutenant "Hatter," to boot, and there's a newspaper with "Mirror" in its name, for a bonus reference to the second Alice book, "Through the Looking-Glass," I guess. Oh, and there's another psychic, too, who's apparently a professor and gives a lecture on the White Knight. None of this adds anything to the picture, though. The filmmakers demonstrate no actual comprehension of the texts from which they've lifted character names and the one scene with a white rabbit.
For starters, the Alice books have nothing to do with cops and psychics. If they actually wanted to try to do something somewhat clever with "Alice in Wonderland" here, they could've suggested the narrative as a dream--especially given that the movie begins with Sutherland waking up from a nightmare, that he has psychic "visions," as well as presumably alcohol-fueled ones, and that he suffers a concussion from the "rabbit hole" fall. But, alas, no. Instead, we get a whodunit with point-of-view shots for the killer ripped off from "Halloween" (1978) and a gazillion other films and where all the plot twists are telegraphed for anyone who's already seen plenty of similar hack jobs to know what's coming. Unless you enjoy sitting through entire acts of Sutherland's overblown cliché of a characterization for such hunches to inevitably be confirmed by the garbage script and filmmaking, then I'd recommend seeing something else after reading the Alice books.
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