WHAT if Hitchcock had made North by Northwest with fast, fluid cameras? It would have meant relinquishing the masterly control that made his thrillers so taut.

Guillaume Canet's man-on-the-run mystery thriller is based on a novel by Harlan Coben, but very much inspired by Hitch's late film. But the material lacks a firm hand.

Claude Charbrol favourite Francois Cluzet stars as a doctor whose wife is murdered by a serial killer. But eight years later, he receives an internet link to CCTV that shows she is alive. Then police discover two bodies near the scene where she allegedly died . . . he is being framed and goes on the hoof to prove his innocence.

There is a chase sequence on foot captured with thrilling realism. But Canet's camera is always running around the material and never controlling it. The plot thickens and contorts, but the adaptation is so wobbly it requires a lengthy explanation to set us straight. Cluzet spends a lot of time looking sweaty and maudlin (Remember how Cary Grant could still find time to bag Eva Marie Saint and change his shirt? ). Kristen Scott Thomas has a supporting role, but I can't figure out what she was supposed to be doing.

Vacancy
(Nimrod Antal):
Kate Beckinsale, Luke Wilson, Frank Whaley, Ethan Embry.
Running time: 80 minutes
. .

THE slick-retro opening credits suggest something thought-out. But then the car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, and the mobile phones stop working . . . a clear signal that director Nimrod Antal has entered the deadzone of horror cliche.

A bickering couple played by Kate Beckinsale and Luke Wilson make it to a motel run by a rustic creep (Frank Whaley). The bedroom phone rings but there is no one on the line. Then their door is pounded.

Worse still, they find a video tape in the room which shows previous occupants of the room being tortured by masked men: welcome to snuff movie hotel.

There is a modest attempt at characterisation . . . Wilson and Beckinsale get a bitchy rapport going as couple who are on the verge of divorce. But there is a formula at work, and Antal spends most of the 80 minutes prising out shocks.