death note (2006)

aka Desu nôto.
"Whoever's name is written in this notebook will die."
Criminals suddenly start dying for no apparent reason. People believe it to be the work of Kira, an unknown entity. In reality it is the work of Light Yagami (Tatsuya Fujiwara), who has a notebook into which he places the names of people he wants to die. This brings up the sticky subject of the morality of it all. For Yagami is a disallusioned law student, who has seen how the law is powerless to prevent injustice, but is it ever right to become judge and jury? Before Yagami can think about such things the police enlist the help of super detective L to track down Kira the killer.
Based on a manga this is a well contstructed and played out cat and mouse game, that could have been based around Lord Acton's proposition that, 'Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.' The only annoyance is that its really a two part film, and to see the conclusion you need to see Death Note 2.