There’s a point midway through “The Mothman Prophecies” where reporter John Klein (Richard Gere) asks why don’t the Mothmen just come out and explain their actions, to which paranormal specialist Dr. Alex Leek (Alan Bates) replies “Have you ever tried explaining yourself to a cockroach?”I like to think of myself as more understanding than a roach, despite the momentary logic of the analogy. The filmmakers on the other hand didn’t seem to mind utilizing that rationale to create most of the suspense in this film.The story begins with John, a respected political reporter for The Washington Post, and his wife Mary (Debra Messing) finding what promises to be the perfect house. But on the drive back to Washington, an automobile accident renders Mary hospitalized. John becomes haunted by his wife’s incoherent statements about a strange creature she saw before the collision, as well as a sketchpad he discovers full of demonic looking drawings after her sudden death.Flash forward two years, and John is a mere shell of himself. An omnipresent invisible force seems to be with him. While driving to Richmond on assignment to interview the governor, his car mysteriously breaks down and he finds himself in Point Pleasant, W. Va., about 400 miles south of where he last remembers being.It’s at this point that the movie slips into a sort of “X-Files” mode, where strange bedfellows abound. John asks for help from a man who claims John has already been to his house twice. He stays in town to figure out why he is there and to investigate the sightings of a strange creature by the local townsfolk.Gordon Smallwood (Will Patton), the man he first meets while asking for help, becomes John’s connection to the strange creature that seems to be using Gordon as a messenger for John. Meanwhile, he must try to convince skeptical Sgt. Connie Parker (Laura Linney as probably the most nonchalant female police officer since Frances McDormand in “Fargo”) terrible things are about to happen in her sleepy little town.The movie has suspense to spare, with John slowly piecing together the parts of the puzzle. However, it seems every time he does figure a part of the enigma, a new one arises that makes the previous one useless. It is never really clear what the Mothman creature’s motives are, or whether they are good or evil. And there in lies the rub, since not knowing is one of the key points of the movie.Out of either lazy screenwriting or a backfired attempt to create ambiguity, the movie never really ties everything together. Too many red herrings are introduced and then left unexplained, and director Mark Pellington seems more interested in just spooking his audience rather than making us think.Gere does manage to pull a rabbit out of his hat on this one, however. Very few actors can pull off the “scared one minute, rational the next” characteristics that normally inhabit these sorts of films, but Gere does it with such under-acting he seems less a character and more a real human being. The characters of Gordon and Connie are less developed but real all the same.Dr. Leek comes across as the typical mentor/information supplier, yet he never becomes anything more than a channel for plot information to be released. Any philosophy he presents merely comes off as pseudoscientific rantings or misguided psychobabble.And the Mothman himself seems more like the Riddler, playing with those he seems to inform rather than openly trying to help or hurt them. He is the strange puppet master of this tale, and his motives are never discovered.Either that, or we silly cockroaches are just incapable of understanding them.