BEFORE: From a sociopath to a psychopath, and yes, there is a difference... Linking from "Falling Down", Robert Duvall was in "Kicking & Screaming" with Will Ferrell, who was in at least three films ("Old School", "Wedding Crashers", "Anchorman", take your pick) with Vince Vaughn (last seen in "Couples Retreat").
THE PLOT: An FBI agent persuades a social worker to enter the mind of a comatose serial killer in order to learn where he has hidden his latest kidnap victim.
AFTER: I'm really split down the middle on this one - because the idea is so wildly inventive, but also very impossible. (Although, there was something in the news the other day about people's dream waves being turned into video, so who knows...) Plus it's thrilling, but also disturbing. Exciting, but scary.
This is a bit like "Silence of the Lambs" (race to find the kidnapped girl), mixed with the Black Lodge sequences from "Twin Peaks" (which also featured a killer singing "Mairzy Doats", oddly enough) with a bit of the dreamscape from "What Dreams May Come".
I've got great respect for Vincent D'Onofrio (last seen in "Impostor"), who plays the psycho-killer here. I'm currently watching the last season of "Law & Order: Criminal Intent", which might be some of his best work. "Full Metal Jacket", "Men in Black", plus he's played Orson Welles a couple times, and I have to respect that - he seems like a real actor's actor.
I actually failed watching this in the early a.m., and I fell asleep just as the film was getting good, when we get to see the inside of the killer's mind for the first time. When that happens, I bring the DVD to work with me, and I finished it after closing time. Considering the disturbing imagery, it's probably better that I didn't see some of that stuff right before bedtime.
Plus there's some stuff here that isn't really explained - what were those weird towels with the microcircuitry that they had to put on their faces? How did those things help with the process? And why did they have to be suspended by wires? Falling asleep in a bed or on a table wouldn't work?
I'm kicking off the October horror movies a day early, but that's OK - it will all work out in the end, and I should bring this baby in right on time with movie #1000.
Also starring Jennifer Lopez (last seen in "Out of Sight"), Dylan Baker (last seen in "Kinsey"), Marianne Jean-Baptiste (last seen in "Spy Game"), Jake Weber (last seen in "Meet Joe Black", here playing a cop named Gordon Ramsey, odd...), with a cameo from James Gammon (last seen in an uncredited role in "Cool Hand Luke").
RATING: 5 out of 10 staircases
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