BEFORE: My original plan was to follow "Disorganized Crime" with "The Losers", with crime films sort of leading me neatly into spy/action films, and then that would have allowed me to sneak in "The Avengers" this weekend. But, plans got changed and we drove out to Long Island for a "Chinese Auction" event, a (fortunately non-denominational) church fund-raising thing, where people pay for tickets and then place their tickets in little cups next to items they want to try and win, and then the items are raffled off. I wagered nearly all of my tickets on a game of Jenga, and ended up winning it - based on the quality of the other auction items, I think I made the right move.
So I've had to shuffle a few things around - I'll try to get to "The Avengers" before the end of the week. This may result in a thematic break tonight, or at least a hiccup - but I can't be sure, since I don't fully know what this film is about, and therefore where it should fit in the chain. Is this a spy film like "Taken", or a mind-trip like "Memento", or is it both, like "The Bourne Identity"? I don't know since I haven't seen it, and that's maddening.
Actually, this is the 2nd or 3rd time I've shaken up the schedule lately - I was planning to go from cop films to "The Three Musketeers" to "Les Miserables" and lead into a Liam Neeson chain that way, but it felt a little forced, so I went a different way and still ended up here. At least I can link from Ruben Blades of "Disorganized Crime" to Aidan Quinn (last seen in "Legends of the Fall"), since they co-starred in "The Lemon Sisters".
THE PLOT: A man awakens from a coma, only to discover that someone has taken on his identity and that no one, (not even his wife), believes him. With the help of a young woman, he sets out to prove who he is.
AFTER: This starts out like a mind-wipe film, with one of those Hollywood-type accidents where someone gets hit on the head and loses his memory (or does he?) and then struggles to remember who he is and how he came to be in the hospital. The problem is, what he remembers doesn't seem to fit with reality, as the people he remembers don't remember him.
For a brief while, it sort of became another kind of film, one where reality itself is subjective, memories are not necessarily true, and the fear this invokes gets carried over to the audience - what is reality, anyway? How do we know that we wake up in the same reality every morning, if memory itself is not fixed? How do we know we're not all just brains in jars in some cosmic lab table, and everything we see and feel is some kind of experiment? And if the universe was shrinking, and everything was getting smaller, including our measuring devices, how would we know? But I digress...
There are other kinds of fear portrayed here, too - fear of being in a foreign country without I.D., fear of car accidents, fear of hospitals, fear of anesthesia, fear of the government, fear of being followed.
Eventually this becomes a third type of film, as the facts become known. Without spoiling anything (I hope) let me just say that I'm comfortable with this film's placement in the chain. But that's a good sign of a well-written screenplay - as the characters learn more information, the different possible explanations for what's really going on are slowly eliminated, and we the audience are able to piece together the true facts as the main character does the same. For once, the protagonist wasn't ahead of me, and I wasn't ahead of him either.
It might be a lengthy and outlandish explanation, but it is a sufficient one. Nearly all of my nitpick points were negated as the film neared the climax, I'm left with just one question, but I can't really bring it up. I'll just imagine that a supposedly smart character can still make a very dumb mistake, and then everything's wrapped up in a neat little package.
Also starring Liam Neeson (last heard in "The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader"), Diane Kruger (last seen in "Inglourious Basterds"), January Jones (last seen in "X-Men: First Class"), Frank Langella (last seen in "Cutthroat Island").
RATING: 6 out of 10 security cameras
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