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Verdict: Not many pluses.

Details: Starring Owen Wilson and Janeane Garofalo. Directed by Hamilton Fancher. Rated R for violence and language. 1 hour, 55 minutes.

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Review: Hamilton Fancher, whose claim to Hollywood fame is the screenplay for "Blade Runner," has made his directorial debut at age 60 with "The Minus Man."

Maybe he should've waited until he was 61.

What Fancher has managed to do is make a dull movie about a serial killer. Not sobering. Not cerebral. Just dull. "The Minus Man" is as flat and affectless as its central character, Vann Siegert (Owen Wilson).

On the surface, Vann appears to be an affable drifter with a ready, albeit nervous smile and an apparent willingness to listen to people's problems. The trouble is, he also kills people — usually with poison-laced amaretto. "I've never done anything violent to anybody," he insists. "They just go to sleep."

After dispatching an unhappy heroin addict (Sheryl Crow in an unhappy screen debut), he settles in small-town California, renting a room from a quarrelsome married couple (Mercedes Ruehl and Brian Cox). The husband, who seems desperate for a friend, gets Vann a job at the post office, where he becomes pals with fellow employee Ferrin (Janeane Garofalo). Then he starts looking for people to kill.

Based on a 1990 novel by Lew McCreary, the movie offers an interesting premise: the compulsive killer as freaky cipher who, if anything, seems all too normal. Something of the same theme was explored in a far superior film called "The Stepfather," which is available on video. So it can be done.

But "The Minus Man" meanders aimlessly, never attempting any insights into its main character. That Wilson, last seen in "The Haunting," is such an inept actor doesn't help. With his squinty eyes and pugilist's nose, he suggests a bargain-basement Sean Penn. Only minus the charisma and the talent.

Granted, Vann is supposed to be a bit of a zero, but acting a zero and being a zero are two different things. Meanwhile, Wilson's far more talented co-stars flounder around in underwritten roles, trying their best not to chew the scenery (always an option when you've got nothing left to lose).

It's possible that with an immensely gifted actor in the title role — say, oh, Sean Penn — "The Minus Man" might've worked. As is, it's the sort of movie where you find yourself kind of hoping Vann will kill again, just to pick things up.

— Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Cox News Service

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