OK, let's get the obvious out of the way first: "Blink" is utterly ludicrous, front to back. The central plot is pretty silly to begin with, and in retrospect, the story makes even less sense when the mystery is at last unraveled — and "unraveled" is the word.

Yet, there are some guilty pleasures here, not the least of which is watching Madeleine Stowe finally being allowed to strut her stuff in a lead role, however minor the film itself may be. In fact, she's terrific, using her firey screen presence in a valiant attempt to make something worthwhile of this cinematic sludge.

Stowe plays Emma Brody, a blind fiddler who plays with an Irish band in dark clubs around Chicago. She was blinded as a child, when her abusive mother knocked her into a mirror, which we see in a flashback.

Early in the film, she undergoes a corneal transplant, which allows her vision to return. But the immediate effect is that everything she sees is so blurry that nothing is distinctive, though she does have occasional sharp images that are described as "retroactive hallucinations." In other words, her eyes register what she has seen sometime after she has actually seen it.

Naturally, Emma witnesses a murder in her apartment building but can't quite make out the face of the murderer.

Enter homicide detective John Hallstrom (Aidan Quinn), a world-class male-chauvinist pig, who first spotted Emma when she was performing one night. Betting he can get her attention for a date, John made a fool of himself by stripping in front of the stage, not realizing she couldn't see him.

He's the guy assigned to the case, he falls in love with her and they spend most of the rest of the movie fighting and making love.

Meanwhile, first-time screenwriter Dana Stevens and director Michael Apted ("Thunderheart," the "7 Up" documentaries) attempt to confuse the audience about the killer's identity by throwing out a couple of goofy red herrings, which seems odd since the killer's face is revealed a couple of times early in the film.

Quinn's character is ill-defined and inconsistent, though the actor works hard at it and manages to work up some sparks with Stowe. But both Laurie Metcalf, as Stowe's best friend, and James Remar, as Quinn's co-worker, are woefully underused. As Stowe's doctor, Peter Friedman is able to do a little more with his character . . . but not much.

"Blink" is rated R for considerable violence, profanity, sex and nudity.