Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

Remote Viewing. Now there is a science fiction genre that hasn't been touched on enough in movies. But is it only just science fiction? If you ever listen to the radio show 'Coast to Coast', then you already have an idea about what it is, and maybe you even believe the callers who portray stories in which it involved their lives. For everyone else, remote viewing is basically being in a stationary spot (we will use Seattle as the example), and being able to view Houston, while just using your mind. Think of it as being able to concentrate hard enough to put yourself in another location, with the ability to see what is going on there. It is a pretty cool concept if you think about it, and could really prove useful to members of the police in regards to missing person’s cases. For the movie, it goes that route to a certain extent, involving the missing persons, but focusing more on the people abducting them, and the violent movements these people end up making. To be sure, the movie tries to be a sped up version of Se7en, but we will get to the comparisons after I reveal the plot of this particular film.

Aaron Eckhart and Carrie-Ann Moss star as two FBI agents, formally married in a time before this film. Because of a case that went bad, Moss has been put behind a desk in Dallas, Texas, and Eckhart has been shipped off to a new position in the New Mexico Bureau. For a big city detective, this is a big demotion, but he takes it in stride, realizing that he is at least still in the agency, and can continue to do his job, just on a smaller scale. From the start, these characters are very hard to relate to, and Eckhart shows again, just why I don't like him as an actor. I didn't believe him as the bad-guy in Paycheck, and I really had trouble with him in this role as well. It is pretty obvious from the opening scenes, that he has a connection to a killer, and if the terrible writing gives that away too much in the opening dialogue between Eckhart's character and the people around him. Like we aren't supposed to think it is weird that when unpacking at his new job he puts a baseball and a bottle of aspirin on the desk? More subtleties could have been used here, and that would have went a long way with this film.

Finally getting into "story-telling" mode, the film allows us to see things from the point of view of Benjamin O'Ryan. This could have been considered the one bright spot in the movie, and ultimately the reason I ended up seeing the film. Playing O'Ryan is Ben Kinsley (yes, Ghandi), in a role that was really tailored to his talents, but which were under-used and end up being just another thing that the movie does wrong. Instead of coming off as being scary, or disturbed, I ended up feeling sorry for the character, which cannot happen in a "thriller" movie like this one. It is O'Ryan that is able to remote view distant people, and the audience is shown (too often) just how he is able to do that. In fact, I would guess a quarter of the movie is used to explain how he does it, and his reactions to what he is seeing. It actually got on my nerves that the Director didn't think we as the audience would remember how he did it, so it is explained frequently. To make us feel smart though, he dumbed down the FBI agents, and made them unaware of what was going on. To us, he shows that there is a serial killer traveling across the United State, picking up children, and leaving them dead in his path. Yes, the movie gets a little disturbing.

The only way that our FBI agents are going to catch the killer, is to track down O'Ryan, who has taken the law into his own hands, and is tracking down serial killers himself. Upon finding them, he enacts the vengeance of the victims, and kills the killers themselves. In a sick way, you could say he is helping us all, by removing some pretty scummy people from this Earth. The only problem is, I didn't find him to have the violent tendencies to be able to do these types of things, and when he does find his victims, it is trying just to watch the scenes play out. I think we were supposed to be rooting for him, but again, there were no likeable qualities to attach my emotions to. The idea that a serial killer could make it from one side of the United State to the other, not succumbing to any patterns that would get him caught is quite a scary thought, and was the other reason I thought this film could succeed in its darkness. I was sadly mistaken, as we instead are given a trodding story that doesn't know what its characters are doing at any time. Eckhart is not believable, Kingsley has nothing to work with, and the scenes that are intended to be scary come off as laughable instead. There is a reason that this movie only pulled in 8.6 million dollars at the box office, and a good reason that I am giving this movie 1 star. With an original idea like remote viewing, I had hoped for more, but instead wasted my time, and a rental on a film that shouldn't have been made.




Recommended: No

Viewing Format: DVD