The psycho-thriller genre has hit rock bottom with Mike Romanek’s “One Hour Photo.” The supposed rollercoaster ride into your local photo developer’s mind comes to a sharp halt with an ending that screams writer’s block and production deadlines.

“One Hour Photo” is the story of Seymour Parrish (Robin Williams, “Patch Adams”), a lonely, dedicated photo developer who really appreciates what photography is about–living vicariously through pictures. Seymour finds a life to fill the void in his own in the pictures of the Yorkin family, which he has been developing since the birth of their son, Jakob (newcomer Dylan Smith).

The photomural on Sy’s wall is composed completely of pictures of his, well, adopted family. Obviously, the obsession with the Yorkins turns amusingly dangerous when Sy discovers that Nina Yorkin’s (Connie Nielsen, “Gladiator”) husband Will (Michael Vartan, TV’s “Alias”) has been cheating. After Sy is fired for reprinting pictures, he leads the police through a really, really simple and short game of cat and mouse in a poor attempt to expose the evil, abusive, neglecting, demanding, cheating, husband, Will.

Finally, Sy is caught by the brilliant detective James Van Der Zee (Eriq La Salle, “Coming to America”), but whether or not Sy or Will are punished for their actions is terribly unclear.

The film fails mostly in its structural outline. The movie begins with a really heavy-handed voice-over of Sy’s thoughts. Robin Williams talks in this subdued voice very similar to the opening narration of “American Beauty.” However, the voice-over–the glimpse into the mind of the stalker–drops out after 30 minutes, leaving the viewer confused as to whether this movie is an analysis of the stalker mentality or just about a friendly photo finisher who enjoys breaking up marriages.

Until the plot takes over and the movie is still just about Sy, the pace is slow. Romanek gives the viewer some nice shots of Sy driving to work, watching “The Simpsons,” drinking coffee and doing his job. These scenes help build Sy as a real person who does things that you would imagine your photo guy did in his free time.

Once the plot takes over, the film’s pace increases rapidly as new twists and characters are added. With all these hasty late additions, the real characters that the movie builds in the beginning are lost as they become as two-dimensional as the photos that portray them.

Williams takes on another dark role that, ironically, is his best comedic performance in a film that doesn’t involve him becoming a woman. Since Sy is sad at the beginning of the film, believing his sadness at moments when he should be distraught–when he is fired, for example–becomes nearly impossible as Williams has but one sad face, one sad voice and one sad demeanor.

The best performance belongs to Nielsen, whose layered portrayal of motherhood is the only thing untarnished by the flaws of the movie.

On an interesting side note, the background music during many of the scenes is the same score from “American Beauty,” and the music during the “thriller” scenes is lifted from Darren Aronofsky’s “Requiem for a Dream.”

“One Hour Photo” probably needed a few more hours of development before production, in which Romanek could have clearly decided what the film should be about–a character analysis or a suspense thriller. But as both, the film is incomplete, boring and confusing. Without an interesting plot, a stellar performance, a clear message or a second of suspense, “One Hour Photo” makes me wish I had taken my film elsewhere.

Grade: C