IT LOOKS like a dream ticket - Hollywood heavyweights Morgan Freeman and Gene Hackman squaring up to each other in a tense psychological drama with a sexual undertones.

Stephen Hopkins' taut remake of the French film, Garde A Vue, based on John Wainwright's novel, Brainwash, broods and simmers through a difficult, sometimes uncomfortable story.

Set in Puerto Rico, Hackman plays Henry Hearst, a wealthy lawyer on his way to give a speech at a charity function in aid of hurricane victims. Freeman is Victor Benezet, a police captain who asks his old friend Hearst to call into the station on the way to dinner.

What begins as a friendly chat slowly turns into a no-holds-barred interrogation as Benezet gradually reveals his friend to be the prime suspect in the rape and murder of three young girls.

As the layers are peeled back, Hearst's life - beautiful young wife, enormous wealth - is revealed as a sham; while Benezet is shown to have sacrificed domestic happiness for his career.

Under Suspicion is a whodunnit of rare intelligence, laced with ambiguities and made all the more remarkable for the joy of seeing Hackman and Freeman slug it out.