What's that smell? The plain isn't the only thing that's charred in screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga's directorial debut; subtlety goes up in flames too.

Arriaga's multi-narrative format got the best of him. Rather than deliver a sense of shock and awe, it's swallowed up by complexity, leaving you to wonder, "This is it?"

When so many cinema releases are instantly forgettable, The Burning Plain clings to the memory...

The Burning Plain has individual scenes that are powerful and moving, but in the end the whole is considerably less than the sum of its parts.