Film Review--Push

Push
directed by Paul McGuigan
written by David Bourla
starring Djimon Hounsou, Dakota Fanning, Camilla Belle, Neil Jackson, Chris Evans, Cliff Curtis, Ming-Na, Nate Mooney, Maggie Siff

This convoluted, unintentionally funny film is consumed with flash and cortisone at the expense of a coherent, watchable story.

The story certainly must make sense on paper. All of the angles, strange weavings, side traps, and frustrating curvatures must be absolutely clear to whomever pitched the film but to the audience, not so much. It isn’t simply that it’s almost impossible to figure out everything that is happening, it’s that the film is so excruciatingly stylistic while it is jerking one’s chain and expecting one to adore it for that very style that is so strangling. Yes, it looks interesting at times but no more interesting that the Bourne films, “Revolver”, “The Transporter” any Bond film, or even the first couple Pink Panther movies. Indeed, the style quickly becomes a liability as it fails ultimately to serve enough as a diversion to take people’s minds off of the fact that there is no story here.

What story there is seems to involve a collection of individuals who all have various talents for mucking up time and space. They can scream to shatter glass and whatever else is in the way, some can program people’s thoughts, some can move objects around at will, and some see the future. There are many others but it isn’t clear just what they all do. What is clear is that these folks are the enemy of “The Division”, a government body who does experiments, allegedly based on those performed by th Nazis, who are said to have tested various subjects with potent new drugs designed to make them stronger and pliable to the Division’s will.

So, all of these characters push each other around as the film’s focus comes into play. There is a briefcase with something of tremendous value in it and a Watcher named Cassie Holmes (Fanning) believes it to contain $6 million US. She is working with a Mover named Nick (Evans) and she keeps reading clues and writing them down in day glo art pieces that are actually not half bad. So, she sees something and they head off to figure out what the hell they are supposed to find. Much of the film plays out this way until they realize it isn’t money that’s in the briefcase but drugs. Specifically some drug that will change the face of medicine forever. So, it’s really serious and if it gets into the wrong hands, it could create a whole race of super robotic humanoid warrior killers. And if it doesn’t fall into the Division’s hands, who knows how ugly it might get.

The film is passable at times mostly because of Dakota Fanning’s performance. She’s naturally gifted at doing the minimum necessary to make a scene work. There are no wasted movements with her for the duration of the film. She knows clearly what she wants in a scene and she conveys it every time, expertly. So, when she is on the screen, the film has an economy that it otherwise lacks. It tries to make up for this lack with fancy montages and pretty color schemes. Granted, there is an icy cool to some of the interiors but they aren’t anything we haven’t seen done better in “Eyes Wide Shut”, “A Clockwork Orange” and many other films. In fact there is nothing unusual or truly fascinating about the camera work at all in this film and the result is just another paint by the numbers attempt to fool the audience with style without giving them anything to sink their fangs into.

The film has the potential to create unsettling vistas that might make audiences truly discomforted throughout the film. But, bright lights and big city are as far as the imagination will take these people who certainly know how to put on an empty show that is nonetheless loud and vibrant. Yes, they have an understanding of color schemes and set design so that everything has a particular look and seems to fit in nicely but in the end it matters not because the story hasn’t been thought out in advance and is muddled. Actually, it’s not terribly difficult to get the general idea of what is going on but rather it is simply none too easy to understand why it is going on. Apparently the Division has kidnapped or brought in a variety of these freaks and have attempted to shoot them up with a super drug that will give them amazing powers only they keep dying. A woman named Kira Hudson (Belle) escapes after being injected and manages to be the first person to ever survive the procedure. She’s important to the others for reasons that aren’t necessarily fathomable.

The entire film was shot in Hong Kong and the film takes advantage of locations that provide the film with an immediacy that is nevertheless no more advanced than any number of superior films that have proceeded it. There is no shortage of energy although the film still manages to seem over long and its vitality is long been tapped out by the film’s conclusion. Also, the ending itself seems designed strictly for a sequel which will never be made because this film has failed to be even remotely successful financially.

Certainly the idea here is rather interesting in that the film suggests that the Nazi’s were responsible for conducting psychic research in order to create a race of superior fighters who might be able use their powers to more effectively disarm the enemy. Whether or not this is true is not of much interest. The point is to link the Nazi’s with the Division who are treated as a sinister entity bent on fulfilling its own dark agenda. It’s a neat trick and doesn’t quite work because we never quite get a handle on just what the Division does and has done to earn such opprobrium.

Overall, the look of this film isn’t special and its story possesses little nuance or purpose. It simply doesn’t stand out visually enough to trick audiences into imagining there is something more here that there actually is. What is here is vapid, superficial, and coldly calculating to elicit a particular response that never arrives. In the end it’s just loud, fast, and wholly pointless. It wastes some fine performances from Djimon Hounsou and Dakota Fanning and remains too engrossed with its spectacle to create something worth investing in.