Much to Mike's skepticism, he uses hypnotist Franklyn Madison, played by Derek Jacobi (Hamlet), to find out the woman suffers from a past life trauma and someone may be wanting to kill her.

The mystery of the storyline is the picture's greatest strength. Writer Scott Frank does a great job of breaking up all the viewers most important pieces of information, keeping you wondering what the hell actually happened in the woman's past life.

Being husband and wife, and longtime acting partners, Branagh and Thompson make a solid on screen couple, and it's fun to watch them play American characters, while being two of the top actors from England.

Oscar® winner Robin Williams (The Fisher King) makes an appearance as well as the picture's comic relief, of course; however, his character was well written and enters the movie memorably with his first line to Branagh - "F**k you, I'm on a break."

Andy Garcia (The Godfather III) also has a few fun scenes as a journalist who becomes a strain on characters in the past life scenes.

The only thing I didn't like about the movie was its climax. It was a good climax, and I liked the intercut parallel scenes between present and past lives; however, the overall slow motion shot choices, series of events and the death of what ends up being the picture's nemesis were all completely overdone. Outside of that, this picture is flawless for its genre.

Branagh, who was still new to directing--but somehow managed to have an Oscar® nomination under his belt by this time, did a great job of focusing on the mystery of the story. His pacing on this picture was awesome and appeared to have a solid grasp on the material. It surprises me THIS has been the only time he ventured into this genre.

Overall, "Dead Again" is a great suspense thriller and is very cerebral. If you rent it, don't walk away without pausing the movie, cause you will more than likely miss something important. That's how well written and well paced it is. If you haven't seen it, you're missing out on a pure thrill.