Don't you just hate it when you know too soon whodunit? Weak scripts and bad directors telegraph key plot points, spoiling movies for people savvy or just alert enough to foresee what's coming.

	Bill Kaye Clive Owen and Jennifer Aniston in "Derailed." Click photo for larger image. "Derailed" Rated: R for strong disturbing violence, language and some sexuality. Starring: Jennifer Aniston, Clive Owen. Director: Mikael Hafstrom. "Derailed" Web site

Fortunately, the Machiavellian twists at the center of Mikael Hafstrom's "Derailed" are too well tailored for that. I promise to not give it away if you promise to read the rest of this story.

British superstar Clive Owen ("Closer," "The Bourne Identity") is absolutely believable as an ordinary guy in an ordinary marriage who, during an ordinary train ride to work, accidentally meets an extraordinary woman. Making "friends" with Jennifer Aniston, however, isn't what he thought it would be. Polite conversation leads to flirtatious glances. An innocent coffee leads to a private dinner. A forbidden embrace leads to a seedy, late-night hotel. Their rendezvous, however, is suddenly "derailed" by a brutal surprise attack.

That's all I'm going to say about the story. Following the lead of James Siegel's original novel, Stuart Beattie's script jerks left and right on a cascading series of dramatic twists and turns. Swedish director Hafstrom, in his English-language debut, advances the story's smart switchbacks without spoiling it.

The chemistry linking Owen and Aniston isn't the typical smoldering embrace of romantic leads. While the attraction seems more than physical, neither is completely honest with the other, opening endless storyline possibilities. Aniston's silly TV and film comedies belie an ability to bring great depth to more complex characters, and this one is as layered and unpredictable as a Shakespearean heroine.

French actor Vincent Cassel has a thriving career in Europe as a big-screen bad guy and the French voice of Hugh Grant in foreign mixes of his American films. He's working more in the States, co-starring in Steven Soderbergh's ensemble in "Ocean's Twelve." In "Derailed," a movie where everything is not as it seems, Cassel appears to be the only constant. His bad guy is as bad as they get, but Cassel is smart enough to give him multiple textures.

If somebody near you starts spilling the beans about "Derailed," cover your ears and hum loudly. You'll be glad you did.