Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Roxie The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

jbix909 Wow,Scott Wolf kept reminding me of Michael J Fox for some reason. He was OK, but made an intelligent if sort of wimpy detective. I think they should have played a little more towards his brilliance as a crime solver than they did. This movie was actually pretty good. With a few tweaks though it could have been great. You know the story from the other reviews here. The newly promoted detective finds out he's dying so he hires a hit man (Roth) to kill him. Meanwhile an exciting story that tracks a serial killer is in the background. It's pretty good, but as I said, it could have been really good with a couple tweaks in the script and the movie making. It perhaps would have been better with more closure than it had.I wish I had a quarter for every time a cop says "Don't Move, put your hands on your head and don't move". Then the perp runs off and escapes. I mean if you point a weapon at someone be prepared to shoot him, or at least fire some warning shots at him. The guy puts his hands up then runs, and what does the cop do? Nothing, and runs after him, only to lose him. I always wind up yelling c'mon stupid, shoot him, shoot him, but I guess the movie is more exciting for people when it's not realistic. Six stars out of ten.

subzerobob This movie is about killing internal motivation, not about killing Emmett Young. The antagonist challenges internal motivation (and shows his Hopelessness) The hero embraces boundless ambition (and shows his Passion)On Becoming a Detective: Requires internal motivation, embracing detective work, ambition, split second deliberation. This movie is great. It is not superb, but it is great! Once again I was lucky that I bought this at the .99c store, but don't be fooled - it is not just the price talking. I almost didn't buy it, because the cover didn't look very promising, neither did the title. This is just to show you not the judge the movie by the cover. This movie is not about "Killing Emmett Young," this movie is about becoming an exceptional detective. This is detective, crime genre, which tends to be polluted with tons of rotten produce. Because they are fairly inexpensive to make, so the return on investment can be nice, but you really need a strong plot twist and great directing to break through. This movie might not hold up on one part of the plot premise - the actual killing of Emmett (we are still left asking the old fashioned :why" and also it looks way to fabricated and unreal to actually be true), but it has great directing style to compensate for it (everything is darkish, grayish like an October Sunday night late afternoon feeling). This movie, coming from a small production company, is a breeze of fresh air. It is not like "Seven" or "Silence of the Lambs" but the detective work and the acting is nearly to the same level. If we must compare the levels, then this will be a match of the highly acclaimed Al Pacino's "Insomnia." I just love it when I see a dedicated detective, being new to the job, trying to impress everybody, and taking his job very seriously. Anywhere in life, the best results come from that state of mind. What is even more interesting, and what makes this movie to stand out, is the choice that Young has to make - should he try to save his own life, or the life of the next victim? Luckily I don't have to make that choice at my job, even though sometimes it comes pretty close (metaphorically speaking). Also I love to see in a movie the small human errors that can indirectly lead to someone's death. Trying to expose that is always difficult, because the very same people that make those mistakes, will be watching this movie, and still not realize what they are doing. I like the message that this movie sends out: persistence will break resistance - think outside the box and always stay motivated. 50% of any work is showing up on time, the other 50% is being able to stay at work until the job is done. And this movie gets the job done for me. I give it 6.5 stars out of 10.

zombie8415 I liked the movie. Consider it very psychological. And I don't think that the serial killer does matter. It is just the way of Emmett to express his desire to live and give a trace in the world. He is struggling so hard to solve a murder, knowing that it will be the last thing that he will do. The twist in assassin's head to kill or not to kill is that he himself does not think that he is capable of doing it. He wanted to be a good cop all his life, but he was just an ordinary guy who could not do anything of his life. And when Steven Bracket insults him and tells him those things, he knows that it is true. At the same time he is jealous at young detective, because he is everything that assassin had ever wanted to be. The end is really surprising. We are going back, like in the circle. The normal life continues, and somehow we know what will happen no matter that it is not shown.

John Wilkes Booth Scott Wolf has the unique problem of looking like he's twenty when he's nearing forty. In Emmett's Mark (the better name of this movie because it can refer to more things, such as his signature, his legacy and his end), Wolf is a believable living character despite his unchanging looks. He plays Emmett Young well. The terminally ill Philly Homicide Detective is a real person with understandable doubts and fears. A character that is lived in, not just faked.The seamless acting, direction and editing is a highlight of this poorly received film. As is Tim Roth (Cunningham in Rob Roy), as the soft-spoken first-timer hit man. A character trying to dig himself out of the hole of a failed life. His casting convinced me to hold off flipping the channel. If you can see it for free (or a nominal fee) it is not likely to inspire your wrath against the production.Gabriel Byrne, comfortably becoming a terrific character actor, plays a Mafioso type, who arranges the 'mercy killing' and adds to the quiet, morose atmosphere of a dark story about the lives we fight for and those that we abandon when times get too tough. There are many interesting themes and strange developing emotions laden in the film.Not a masterpiece, due to the musical score, though it had allusions to other films that have made more wake in the cinematic world that in retrospect were borderline copyright infringement. The final scene is taken, as far as I know, directly from the airport scene from HEAT, which is taken from Bullitt. This is the movie business, not church. No one wants a new idea when they can have a good idea.Emmett's Mark is an Interesting, unique, non-threatening film, although the main character pays someone to kill him before the cancer does. Things sort of just work out for Emmett and against Tim Roth, but it is still a bit of a downer.