What does it say that Tarsem Singh, a director best known for his
dazzling visual flair, is becoming just another standard, everyday filmmaker?
Whatever one had to say about The Cell, The Fall,
or Immortals,
they at least looked great even if the narratives were sketchy. His last film, Mirror Mirror,
a colorful fairy tale reimagining, was like Singh straddling the bridge between
his adventurous early style and the generic approach he takes to Self/Less, a body-swapping
thriller with enough twists and turns to overcome its disappointing lack of
ambition.
Self/Less is a film that stands solidly on the
shoulders of John Frankenheimer's 1966 film, Seconds,
in exploring themes of identity and transhumanism. However, the screenplay
crafted by David and Alex Pastor only superficially approaches these
issues in order to keep the momentum at a high pace and star Ryan Reynolds
showing why he was once considered a top action star. Basically, don't expect
the film to get as deep as it likely could have. In the double-identity genre
think of it less like Looper and more like Face/Off.
So how in the world can Ben Kingsley and
Ryan Reynolds ever be the same guy? What twisted reality is this? Kingsley,
sporting an overdone New Yawk accent, is heart/less (sorry, it's a habit)
billionaire real estate magnate Damian Hale, who lives in a luxuriant high-rise
apartment in New York City. Like King Midas the interior of the place is
covered in gold, and also like Midas all of that wealth hasn't made Damian
happy. He's estranged from his daughter (Michelle Dockery) who rejects his
opulent lifestyle, but worse is that he's been diagnosed with terminal cancer.
With only a short time to live, Damian grows desperate, and since he's rich he
can afford to be part of a crazy experiment run by the silky smooth and
mysterious Albright (Matthew Goode). Without going too deep into it, Damian's
mind will be transferred into a younger, healthier, more physically-fit body
(which looks a lot like Ryan Reynolds because it is) so he can start over
again. He'll have his money and a new lease on life with which to do whatever
he wants.
But, as Albright casually
warns, “Death has some side effects”. Those turn out to be that Damian,
now known as Edward, is having agonizing flashbacks of memories that clearly
aren't his. Turns out his new body has some wear on the tires, having belonged
to a former soldier with a wife named Madeline (Natalie Martinez) and daughter.
That puts a serious crimp in Edward's new life as a rich New Orleans
philanderer, so Albright puts him on a regiment of pills that will make the
body's old personality fade away.
Short of a brief, searing montage of
Edward's high-roller lifestyle of hot sex, gambling, and liquor, Self/Less could have been directed by just about
anybody. Singh acquits himself well to the rest of the material but it lacks
the stylistic fingerprint we're accustomed to. For the most part the rest of
the movie plays out like standard action fare, as Damian/Edward begins to have
second thoughts about the procedure, especially when he meets Edward's family
who are understandably confused by the situation. Meanwhile, Albright isn't
willing to let him run around and screw things up, so he sends an army of
body-swapping goons to kill Damian/Edward once and for all. Those aspects of
the story are pretty silly (hey, let's keep a low profile but torch the guy's
house!), but the internal conflict within Edward/Damian is where the film
succeeds. For Damian, he must decide finally come to grips with the terrible
man he used to be, and decide if he's strong enough to live up to the
courageous man whose body he now occupies. The jumbled emotional conflicts
between Damian and Madeline also produce some interesting dilemmas, although
they are too often interrupted by gunfights and car chases to be dealt with in
any depth.
Showing the charm and chiseled physicality
that has carried him well through much lesser films, Reynolds finally seems to
be moving beyond the disasters that derailed his career. But for
Singh, Self/Less could be sign that he's ready to
just fit in to the Hollywood landscape, and that would be disappointing.
Rating: 3 out of 5
