Body/mind transference, the central idea behind the thriller SELF/LESS, is so flush with opportunity that it’s frustrating to see this new movie fly off the rails so early and so completely. SELF/LESS has the premise for thought-provoking science-fiction, but it doesn’t have the gumption. It would rather be a blockbuster than a mind-bender but it turns out to be neither. Ben Kingsley stars as Damian Hale, a miserly real-estate magnate at death’s door who pays a quarter million dollars for the services of the shadowy corporation known as ‘Phoenix Biogenics’ (we know he’s rich because he’s shown in his Trump-style penthouse complete with solid gold doors and bannister). Albright (Matthew Goode), Phoenix’s spiffy young chief, offers his clients ‘Shedding’, a process of transferring the mind from the old and sick body into a healthy younger human grown organically in their lab. Damian awakens in his new skin, now called Edward (now played by Ryan Reynolds) and is sent to New Orleans, where’s he’s told to forget his former life and not to contact anyone from his past, which he does right away, phoning, then hanging up on, his daughter with whom he has a strained relationship. His new young body turns out not to be grown in a test tube after all (shocker there!) but was a family man with a wife (Natalie Martinez) and child who had volunteered to turn his body over to the nefarious folks at Phoenix in exchange for keeping his sick daughter alive. Damian is supposed to pop his daily red pill to keep Edward’s old memories at bay, but of course neglects to one day and he’s soon off to revisit the younger man’s family.
The set-up of SELF/LESS recalls SECONDS, the unforgettable 1966 John Frankenheimer film where an older man (John Randolph) hires a shady high-tech service to provide him with the beefed-up, younger body of Rock Hudson and a fresh start in life. SECONDS was a terrifying drama about despair, regret, and identity while SELF/LESS addresses the existential consequences of this Faustian theme in but a couple of early scenes. Damien/Edward plays basketball with some street youth and there’s a nice moment where he takes a foxy young gal to bed, marveling at the virility of his new shell. If this review sounds spoiler-ish, it’s really not. Everything I’ve described happens in the first 25 minutes (of a long 115). The moment Damien reconnects with Edward’s family, he becomes the target of Phoenix’s well-armed hit squad led by the seemingly-invincible Anton (Derek Luke) and SELF/LESS abandons all intrigue, devolving into a lame pursuit thriller with 90 more minutes of conventional shoot outs, fistfights, and car chases. Since Edward, it’s revealed, is ex-Special Forces, he has the skills to dispatch the army of goons on his heels and to handle the weaponry thrown his way, especially the flame-thrower that comes in handy in a couple of scenes.
SELF/LESS is Hollywood at its worst: pointless, witless, and unnecessary. HOT CHICK was a deeper look at this subject. It’s helmed by the talented Tarsem Singh, who’s offered up eye-popping imagery in previous films like THE CELL, THE IMMORTALS, and THE FALL (even his failed Snow White take MIRROR MIRROR was fun to look at), but his new film is so visually unambitious, it’s hard to believe it’s the same director. The key special effect is when that red pill fails to kick in and there’s a sort of glitchy short-circuit video-warp of Damien/Edward’s face, but even that’s not as low-tech ridiculous as the magical body-mind transference device that looks suspiciously like a CT scanner modified with some Christmas lights because that’s exactly what it is. Singh does a terrible job directing the action. The editing is so confusing and the action so logic- and consequence-free that it becomes almost unwatchable. Since its New Orleans-set, the big showdown must take place in an abandoned warehouse “used to house Mardi Gras floats”, and a bizarre scene in Edward’s backyard involving an SUV, a startled horse, and that flame-thrower is jaw-dropping in its ineptness. Ryan Reynolds does what he can with the weak material, Kingsley seems to have fun with his bad Bronx accent, and Matthew Goode acts as if he’s auditioning for the next 007 villain. SELF/LESS is nothing more than a lazy, soulless studio effort wrapped up in an enticing sci-fi landscape and will be forgotten before long, red pill or not.
1 of 5 Stars
