An ambitious effort to focus on characters rather than the usual comic book action, shoot-em-ups, casual sex, cheap laughs and heavy reliance on special effects. It's flawed and difficult to follow, but deserves serious attention.

The film unravels, like a Faulkner novel, in jigsaw fashion. Suspense is built from the start with brief flashes of information, paid out in a jumble of pieces, until by the final few minutes that dip luridly into a shocking scene, it all makes sense - sort of.

What we learn early on is that a man is planning his own suicide, that he has a younger brother who has good cause to worry over him, that he cruelly attacks a blind man on the phone, that he is, contrarily, all charm & smiles - a very kind man - spending his time bringing goodness to people in need, that he has reminiscent flashes of a serious car accident - all this in bits and pieces for us to pull together as we sit breathlessly, caught up in the personalities as they gradually develop.

Among the main characters: Will Smith is the man in question; Michael Ealy is his younger brother; Rosario Dawson becomes the strongest focus in his do-gooding; and Woody Harrelson, completely out of character, is the blind man with a forgiving nature. Director Gabriele Muccino is paired again with Smith (after "Pursuit of Happyness"). Along with Grant Nieporte, first-time screen writer, the aim is to play slight-of-hand much in the fashion of "The Sixth Sense," relying entirely on keeping the audience guessing until the final revelation, but this team's aim is to the heart rather than the brain.

Except for the unbearably long pauses in conversations - a throwback to the dramas of the 70's & 80's, I'm afraid - the characters come across as believable on that emotional level. The melodrama accepted, the movie becomes worth watching for more than plot. Especially important are the settings - in seedy parts of the city and in poverty-stricken homes (all, except for some unexplained reason, Simth's posh pad). Details cry out for attention from place to place, and thanks to production designer J. Michael Riva, art director David E. Klassen, set designer Anne Porter, set decorator Leslie A. Pope and costume designer Sharon Davis, it is possible to embrace the characters in such environments as thoroughly believable, making the suspenseful story line worth accepting - at least while viewing it.

What's the title all about? No importante - it's a Hitchcockian maguffin.