When making a film about kidnapping, one method of injecting drama is to portray the relationship that develops between kidnapper and kidnappee, a device that might have seemed fresh at one point but now seems as tired as the kidnapping film itself. Fargo did a wonderful job subverting that cliché, and so does Oxygen, starring the always-remarkable Adrien Brody (Summer Of Sam) as a kidnapper who innovatively buries his victim alive with a day's worth of air. It's a neat premise for what turns out to be a merely above-average, Silence Of The Lambs-derived thriller with a set-up as promising as its follow-up is predictable. Written and directed by Richard Shepard (The Linguini Incident), Oxygen also stars Maura Tierney (NewsRadio) as a tough female cop with a dark side that leads her to show up at work with alcohol on her breath and cigarette burns on her arm. As is easy to imagine, it doesn't take long before Brody begins spouting dialogue of the "we're not so different, you and I" variety. It's a good thing Brody and Tierney have the acting chops to make it work, as does Dylan Baker in a brief but memorable role as an FBI agent. But with so much going for it, it's all the more disappointing when Oxygen ultimately unspools into the familiar, unconvincing police procedural its opening suggests it will transcend.