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Verdict: Boredom, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

Details: Starring Ewan McGregor and Ashley Judd. Directed by Stephan Elliott. Rated R for language, sex, nudity and violence. 1 hour, 50 minutes.

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Review: As we all know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But what is in the eye of the beheld? Fear? Murder? Loss? Manipulation? Calculation? Damaged innocence? Perhaps all of the above in the case of the new thriller "Eye of the Beholder," which begins as a respectable — occasionally hypnotic — riff on the Coppola-Hackman classic "The Conversation" but veers off in another direction altogether, ending up in a kind of who-cares nowhere.

Ewan McGregor, now forever immortalized as a "Star Wars" doll, plays a high-tech British surveillance agent known only as the Eye. Abandoned by his wife and child several years ago, the Eye lives a cut-off, voyeuristic existence, using the sophisticated tools of his trade to get the job done and the world shut out. As his sympathetic contact at the agency, played with down-to-earth appeal by k.d. lang, notes, "God forbid you'd ever actually come out of your hole and actually talk to another human being."

What she doesn't know is that the Eye is always talking — to the imaginary figure of his long-lost little girl, Lucy. Or, at least, to the girl he imagines Lucy must be, because all he has left of her is a tattered old class picture, and even then he's not sure which of the assorted 8-year-olds is his Lucy.

Handed an assignment that seems routine — find out what's up with a diplomat's son who's dipping into the family trust — the Eye becomes fascinated with the inevitable femme fatale (Ashley Judd) on the scene. "Don't leave her, Daddy," whispers imaginary Lucy. "She's just a little girl."

Thus the film becomes a tale of obsession and pursuit, of abandoned daddies and abandoned daughters entwined in a sad psychological duet. The mystery woman — she changes names as often as she changes wigs — criss-crosses the country with the ever-faithful Eye on her trail as a kind of guardian angel in spite of himself.

Director Stephan Elliott, best-known for the striking "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert," makes sure his picture is as stylishly acted as it is stylishly filmed. Which only makes its increasing incoherence all the more frustrating. "Eye" gets caught in a web of its own homages, ranging from Alfred Hitchcock to Orson Welles to, finally, boringly, Wim Wenders. The more complex it tries to be, the less compelling it becomes.

You can see why two such gifted actors as McGregor and Judd would be attracted to the material. But you have to wonder, did they read the whole script or just the first 30 pages?

— Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Cox News Service

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