Timecrimes (Los Cronocrímenes) makes an attempt to revisit the time-travel genre from a strikingly minimalist perspective. Unfortunately, Spanish Director Nacho Vigalondo’s admirable attempts unravel as the film progresses.

The story centers on Héctor, who, after being chased by a mysterious man in a head bandage, winds up in a time-travel chamber and is transported to an hour beforehand. To say anything more would give away pivotal plot points and subtleties, two characteristics that work strongly in the film’s favor.

The film’s three-act structure registers as a trio of related but distinct exercises in tone. Its first and strongest act feels like an extremely well-crafted horror movie. The atmosphere is menacing, and the action is tense and exciting. The second act quickly shifts gears and reroutes the film into a drama. And the third act resigns itself to fatalism, upon which the movie itself seems to be waiting for the end.

From an intellectual standpoint, this structuring is pure gold and fits perfectly into the trappings of Timecrimes’ theme and concepts. However, it also makes the film dull and predictable for those who are fans of time-travel stories or who are good at figuring things out quickly.

Furthermore, the film’s attempts to make audiences think work only in revealing one gaping plot hole that the dialogue cleverly tiptoes around, but that is noticeable after the first plot twist.

As a short film, Timecrimes would have worked better. Vigalondo and his crew throw in neat little production tricks here and there in an effort to keep things interesting. Eugenio Mira’s score is perfectly understated, while the cinematography and editing reflect the surreal nature of Héctor’s situations.

Unfortunately, these aren’t enough to keep the film going.

The video presentation of the DVD is decent overall. The picture is unfortunately quite a bit grainy for some reason.

However, on a big enough screen, this isn’t noticeable, and everything else looks good.

The film comes with a number of interesting special features, including a making-of featurette and 7:35 de la Mañana, a short film by Vigalondo.

Timecrimes is not a terrible movie, but it isn’t a great one either. For an excellent film on a related theme, check out 2004’s Primer.

Reach reporter Robert Frankel at arts@dailyuw.com.