Hangman

“There will be one winner.”

Detective Archer (Al Pacino), a veteran homicide cop on the edge of retirement, is called to a string of killings that leave a clue behind at every scene, each one a puzzle built from the children's game of Hangman. He is paired with Ruiney (Karl Urban), a profiler, and Johnny Martin directs their search as the letters start to fill in. The game stays ahead of them, which is what makes it frightening: the killer is treating a murder as a word puzzle to be solved.