3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for violence, dramatic intensity and mild sensuality
By Derrick Bang
It’s an old, old lesson: When
something seems too good to be true ... it is.
At first blush, scripters David
and Àlex Pastor have concocted what feels like a sinister medical thriller, of
the sort that put physician-turned-novelist Robin Cook on the map back in the
late 1970s. Director Tarsem Singh keeps the tone atmospheric during a first act
that raises all sorts of intriguing questions, with the New Orleans setting
adding an unsettling, almost-but-not-quite indiscernible layer of tension.
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| Having finally discovered that the woman (Natalie Martinez) and little girl (Jaynee-Lynne Kinchen) in his odd visions are actual people, Damian (Ryan Reynolds) tries to make sense of an already fantastic situation that has gotten even stranger. Trouble is, plenty of people have no interest in allowing him the luxury of such answers... |
Then — also much like a novel by
Cook or Michael Crichton — things shift into a different gear, and suddenly
we’re in pure Hitchcock territory: our hearts engaged with a protagonist
pursued by shadowy unknowns, who cannot — for reasons related to his plight —
turn to official authorities.
All of which is even more
interesting because we’re not sure we should like our not-so-innocent hero.
The result is an economical thriller
that benefits from the Pastor brothers’ carefully crafted narrative. They avoid
serious mistakes, and everything holds together pretty well. And if we’re able
to anticipate a conclusion which, in the third act, seems increasingly
inevitable ... well, that’s okay. It’s the proper
way to end this story, and we exit the theater quite satisfied.
Billionaire New York City-based
industrialist Damian Hale (Ben Kingsley) has made no allies on his way to the
top, and he still enjoys crushing anybody who gets in his way. He’s a selfish,
arrogant man with no family connections, having long ago lost touch with his
activist daughter, Claire (Michelle Dockery), even though her volunteer-staffed
office is only a few blocks away in the same city.
Damian’s only real connection is
with lifelong friend and right-hand man Martin O’Neil (Victor Garber): also the
only person who knows that his boss is close to losing the one battle he cannot
win, against the cancer that is eating him alive.
But an unexpected option exists, courtesy
of a clandestine organization led by Albright (Matthew Goode), who offers a
radical form of immortality to hand-picked clients with the wealth and
resources to make it practical. Albright has developed the technology to
transfer an individual’s mind into a new, lab-cloned body. The process, dubbed
“shedding” — in a nod to the way reptiles shed their skin — can put Damian into
the body of a healthy male at the prime of life.
He jumps at the opportunity.
But the process is illegal, of
course, and the catch is that Damian Hale cannot return to his old life. As far
as the world is concerned, he has died; Albright supplies a new identity,
carefully funded by Damian’s fortune, and “Edward” begins his new existence in
New Orleans. The transition is euphoric: a fast car, faster women and the
casual vigor that comes from a well-toned body in excellent condition.
