Time travel movies can be as frustrating as they are fun, often giving filmmakers free license to abandon the plot and set their sights on confusing the hell out of you. Fortunately, there are films like Spain's Timecrimes, which are flat-out entertaining enough to take the edge off their maddening structures. Though not an incredibly deep film, this one boasts a subtle lesson or two and provides viewers with one of the most trippy and engaging puzzles in recent memory.

After returning home from running errands, the last thing Héctor (Karra Elejalde) expected was to break the laws of physics as we know them. But that's precisely what happens when he decides to pull a Jimmy Stewart and do a bit of spying on his surroundings. Eventually, our boy comes upon a fetching beauty (Bárbara Goenaga) undressing in the woods, a sight he can't resist getting a closer look at. When he goes to investigate, though, Héctor finds himself being hunted by an ominous figure whose head is wrapped in bloody bandages. The ensuing chase leads our hero to a strange laboratory, where an attending scientist (writer/director Nacho Vigalondo) ends up sending him about an hour and a half back in time. With this advantage, Héctor sets about unraveling the mystery behind his stalker, though he soon discovers that he may be powerless in his attempts to change the future for the better.

Timecrimes rests comfortably in the middle of the cinematic time-travel spectrum. It's not as hard-nosed an affair as Primer, nor is it a free-wheeling adventure like Back to the Future. Instead, it's reminiscent of The Butterfly Effect, a dark and foreboding mystery. It's an entertaining film in which the journey matters more than the destination, one where the fun comes from seeing how the scattered events come together more than where everything ends up. Timecrimes is a basic cautionary tale about fiddling around with the space-time continuum, but this time, Vigalondo flirts with the idea of whether we have as much control of our lives as we think. Fate plays a big part in the main story, and though I dare not spoil any surprises, I will mention that Vigalondo deals with themes like this without forcing them too much or making them feel rehashed.

In the end, the bottom line here is all about leading viewers on a journey of suspense through a small handful of timelines (and probably a dozen more it's not telling us about). The turn of events may be easy to predict, but this doesn't interfere with your overall enjoyment. Though you have a good idea of how things are going to turn out, it's still a pleasure seeing them unfold, as opposed to the story bowing to the whim of heedless special effects work. As thrillers go, this low-budget movie works perfectly well within its means.

Although none of the performances stand out, the actors all fit their parts nicely. Elejalde's down-to-earth nature serves him well, for Héctor is an average schmoe thrust suddenly into an extraordinary situation from which he becomes increasingly desperate to escape. Though he's a bit of a brutish jerk at times, you still stand by as he tries to right the many inadvertant wrongs he's responsible for. It's pretty much a one-man show, but Elejalde appears up to the task of maintaining the audience's interest and sympathy.

Timecrimes is a picture ripe with cult classic potential. For the moment, its subtitles have almost guaranteed it won't travel far beyond art-house crowds or the inner circles of the most die-hard movie geeks. Still, I think the mind-bending odyssey served up by Timecrimes might be be all the incentive skittish viewers need to buy a ticket and take this ride.

MY RATING: *** (out of ****)

(Released by Magnolia Home Entertainment and rated "R" for nudity and language.)