It’s not hard to like Samuel L. Jackson. With more than 35 feature films under his belt, the man has fans whose tastes run the cinematic gamut. In this adaptation of George Dawes Green’s 1994 detective novel, his Romulus is a Manhattan vagrant whose musical genius (he has a Juilliard education) and loving family can’t compete with his delusions about an all-seeing adversary. When " Rom " discovers a young drifter’s frozen body in a tree outside the cave he lives in, he makes it his mission to expose the boy’s murderer.

The task is made difficult beyond expectation when he discovers that his own daughter, Lulu (Aunjanue Ellis), a fledgling cop, doesn’t think he can help solve the crime. Directed by Kasi Lemmons, the only African-American woman to helm two studio efforts, The Caveman’s Valentine moves quickly and generates a reasonable degree of suspense; and the visual potency of Romulus’s visions help you understand his madness. Although the wrap-up is sadly unoriginal and comically blatant, the film tells an intriguing and serpentine story, and Jackson conveys the frustration of being the person no one believes.