Thank god Cillian
Murphy is a good actor or Red Lights would have been an altogether unbearable
experience. The story of a team of academic debunkers who work in exposing
frauds of the physic variety starring Sigourney Weaver, Robert De Niro and the
aforementioned Mr.Murphy has all the makings of a great psychological thriller
but falls flat about half way through its running time.
The subject matter
of this film, that maybe there is no thing as physic ability, is a thought
provoking concept. The controversial topic is interesting but the director
Rodrigo Cortés, on top form with recent Buried, seems to not want to take a
decisive stand point on the subject. Leaving the film with no real direction
and seemingly no sense of purpose, it over stays it’s welcome.
The first half of
Red Lights burns with anticipation as to its inevitable outcome but with a
twist in the last five minutes like the ones that put M. Night Shyamalan’s
career in its decline, leaves the viewer reeling with the crassness of it
all. De Niro and Weaver get barely
enough screen time to work with the dire script and Murphy is left manning the
helm of this sinking ship of a movie. He holds it together just about but the
main thought after viewing is why did all these top notch actors sign up to
such drivel? A promising premise, a
wealth of talent and a subject matter full of exploration and debate gets fed
into the food processor of Hollywood and comes out looking like straight to
T.V. unintelligent mush. Red Lights indicate stop
No comments:
Post a Comment