Not only will anyone expecting a film about men who ride horses be greatly disappointed, they’re also likely to be more than a little disturbed by this title.

It stars Dennis Quaid as Aidan Breslin - a widowed detective, who - due to his heavy workload - makes a lousy dad of two sons. As well as being a cop he’s also a bit of an expert on teeth too, as he’s called out to a case where nothing but a mouth’s worth of gnashers are left – on a plate, no less – which turns out to be more gruesome than just a case of terrible gum disease.

Another case soon follows where a woman is murdered in an extreme fashion (which involved being left dangling on tiny hooks, which is far more painful than those tenterhooks), leaving behind a husband and three young daughters. It soon transpires that the eldest, Kristin (Ziyi Yang), who was adopted by the family when she was eight, was actually behind the murder. How do we know this? Because she told Detective Breslin.

And this is the general reaction we're getting from everyone who watches this film?

It soon unfolds that she is part of a group who call themselves 'The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse', who have decided to go on a bit of a killing spree. And Breslin, being that kind of cop, wants to stop that from happening. However, the more he digs, the more he realises that the Horsemen are closer than he thinks.

This is the feature film debut for Swedish music video director Jonas Åkerland, who has shot such vids as Madonna’s Ray of Light, U2’s Beautiful Day and The Prodigy’s controversial Smack My Bitch Up. To his credit, the film has an interesting visual style, with its use of muted colours and its overall dark tone. And considering his background, he does well building up a tangible gist of suspense.

What the film suffers from, sadly, is an awkward narrative that tries its best to support an almost nonsensical plot. This is no surprise when you consider that David Callaham, the film’s writer, had previously only written one other film: 2005’s Doom, based on the classic video game. His only achievement can be that of conveying his feeling of being completely out of his depth from beginning to end to his audience. It doesn’t help that the film’s biggest twist can be compared to the Great Wall of China – you can’t miss either from miles away.

Another bugbear is that of casting Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon star Zhang – who is in her thirties – as a teenager. She may well look good for her age, but that good? No, not at all. It just felt wrong whenever she was on screen. Considering the limits of the script, Quaid does well maintaining a bewildered and aloof demeanour throughout; but then again, that may well be due to the script’s limitations. He looks damn fine in a leather jacket though, so at least the costume department got something right.

It does quite well in the gruesome stakes too; in places it has the same kind of wincing affect as say, a Saw film, with its mechanical torture devices.

As a calling card, director Åckerland has got a good-looking film out of Horsemen. The rest of us however, are left with an experience that showed glimpses of promise, but rather disappointingly ended up not being reined in plot-wise when it clearly needed to be.