Jeff Kohlver (Patrick Wilson) is a 32-year-old Internet predator of young girls¾ engaging in titillating online chats with 14-year-olds. He sets up a rendezvous in a local coffee shop with a girl named Hayley Stark (played with a gamine-like quality by Ellen Page). Hayley is intrigued with Jeff being a photographer, and she initiates an invitation to his house, where she agrees to model for him.

Even as Hayley mixes drinks for them, she looks like a kid playing grown-up, and oddly enough she manages to exude innocence and a lack of guile. A dangerous game and Hayley’s intelligent and seamless interrogation of Jeff soon reveals who has the upper hand in the deal.

Jeff and Hayley each have an agenda. His is obvious and hers becomes clear as the movie progresses. Just how far has Jeff taken this cat and mouse game in the past? Moral dilemmas are given free reign here and everyone who watches the twisted events unfold will have an opinion about the outcome. Men might find themselves squirming in their theater seats a little more than usual.

There are some plausibility issues with the story but the film lives up to its billing as a psychotic thriller. Overall, writer Brian Nelson’s script plays shockingly well under director David Slade’s execution (a deliberate choice of words). Jo Willems, as cinematographer, provides a splendid, bright and contemporary color palate as backdrop. We’ll not reveal anything else, to allow you the fun of discovery. The film arguably provides some insight on pedophilia, from the point of view of both the perpetrator and the victim. In this instance, however, we are left without sympathy for either.

Not long ago, an investigative TV show did a sting operation to see how many men would come to a house, in the middle of the day, to meet an underage girl, for the purpose of having sex. The number was astounding. It’s enough to make us alert to anyone, and a not so sweet message to young teenage girls who think they are bulletproof to harm.