Malkovich, who joins Nicolas Cage and George Clooney as major performers who have recently tried their hand at the helm, has given his audience a humdinger of Nicholas Shakespeare's spy story which, despite its character-driven approach builds up enough tension to get the heart racing. While in one sense the story recalls the capture and life term given in Peru to American Laurie Berenson, "The Dancer Upstairs" works on several levels: We get a clear picture of a 36-year-old man who despite high ideals loses some of his focus in his fascination with his young daughter's ballet teacher and who does his job tracking down a terrorist because of a sense of duty rather than an obsession that embraces all of his waking life. As such we see the highly educated policeman Agustin Rejas (Javier Bardem) reject a career as a lawyer, a rising star in line for a judgeship in his unnamed South American country, chuck his vocation because of its perceived dishonesty, and try to serve the law in a more honest albeit far less remunerative job as a cop. Amen.

Promoted and given the job of tracking down a terrorist who calls himself Ezequial (unnamed in this review in the interest of preserving the suspense), he is confronted by a man who calls himself the Fourth Wall of Marxism and who announces his presence not only by a series of explosions and political assassinations but by hanging dogs on lampposts bearing signs "Long Live President Ezequial." Faced with a deadline of two weeks after which the corrupt government will declare martial law and a suspension of liberties, Rejas, together with his colleague Sucre (Juan Diego Botto), utilizes techniques ranging from a tape of Costa-Gavras' "State of Siege" to an examination of the garbage tossed out on a street believed to house the criminal.

Given the nature of his bimbo wife Llosa (Elivira Minguez), we do not wonder that Rejas would pursue the passionate and mysterious ballet teacher, Yolanda (Laura Morante), a distraction that could prove deadly to his mission.

If the tense but always humanistic "The Dancer Upstairs" is a sign of what Malkovich can do behind the director's seat, we can only hope that the man will continue with his blazing career on the stage and in front of the camera while at the same time looking into directorial projects as challenging and breathtaking as this gem. The credit is shared by a stellar cast headed by Javier Bardem, who bears a resemblance to George Clooney (but who can act) and who made a name with the arthouse crowd with Julian Schnabel's "Before Night Falls" - a compelling look at the life of Cuban Reinaldo Arenas who discovers his homosexuality and is persecuted as a writer.

What makes this picture particularly unusual is its pot pourri of performers including an Italian (Laura Morante), a Spaniard whose English bears a heavy accent (Barden), and others whose first languages are other than English making a valiant effort to speak Milton's tongue with as light an accent as possible. "Dancer" is filmed impressively by Jose Luis Alcaine in Ecuador, Portugal and Madrid, perhaps because Peru would not be eager to show its government past or present as corrupt. One wonders, though, why a single country, say beautiful Ecuador, would not have sufficed for the entire production.