[BD Review] ‘Red Lights’ Fails to Illuminate

Posted by David Harley on August 03, 2012 @ 5:50pm
Related Tags: Cillian Murphy, psychic, Red Lights, review, Robert DeNiro, Rodrigo Cortes, Sigourney Weaver, Sundance

Starting on July 13, Rodrigo Cortes’ Red Lights began its theatrical run and has continued to expand over the last few weeks, with more locations to come. Mike Ferraro caught up with the film this past week and found it to be a “dramatic film with no real payoff.” Check inside to read his thoughts.

In the film, “Robert De Niro stars as Simon Silver, a legendary psychic, perhaps the most famously gifted of all time, who returns after thirty years of mysterious absence to become the world’s greatest challenge to orthodox science and professional skeptics. Meanwhile, paranormal fraud investigator Tom (Cillian Murphy) begins to develop a dense obsession Silver, whose magnetism is enhanced dangerously with each new manifestation of inexplicable phenomena.”

Don’t forget to write your own review and let all of B-D know what you thought.

There are a lot of people out there that really get caught up in believing that these so-called psychic mediums or religious superstar evangelicals speak any words of truth without any help from technology (or members of their payroll). In fact, it amazes me that these people are somehow infinitely richer than I am or ever will be, despite the fact that they have way lower of an education level than I (my Master’s Degree in English won’t help pull even an eighth of the type of coin Joel Osteen or Sylvia Browne made in their time).

This is one of those injustices in the world that will never be fixed, no matter how much we want to believe in karmic distribution.

So comes Red Lights, director Rodrigo Cortés’ mostly disappointing follow-up to the otherwise competent and tense Buried. The film stars Sigourney Weaver as Margaret Matheson, an investigator into the psychic arena, and her partner Tom Buckley (Cillian Murphy). These two travel from show to show in an attempt to figure just how these “psychics” hone in on intimate details of their followers, in order to captivate their imaginations (and their dollar bills).

Shortly into the film, a legendary blind man (Robert De Niro) pops back into the limelight after disappearing from public eye years ago. Certainly he is no Zatoichi – instead of swords, he uses mind-trickery and hypnosis to gain the trust of his millions of followers who have yearned for his return since the day he disappeared.

Red Lights starts off with an intriguing enough premise. Making a film that focuses on the investigations of the psychic world is certainly a premise that grabbed my attention, as my belief in such work is non-existent. When the film takes off, however, and makes the awkward (and failed) turn towards conspiracy thriller, it completely loses any ground it held during the exposition.

The film isn’t a complete failure. The actors (Weaver, De Niro, Murphy, and even Elizabeth Olson) do their best job with the material, and perhaps take it to heights the screenplay (also written by Cortés) just wasn’t meant to go. The photography isn’t bad to look at either. With cinematography by Xavi Giménez (The Machinist and Transsiberian), the look of the film is certainly dark enough to go along with its theme of shining a light in places not meant for clarity.

Is this a horror film? Certainly not. Is it a thriller? Afraid not. This is more of a dramatic film with no real payoff. Sure, there is the inevitable twist at the end that just comes across as lazy, but there is nothing that grabs your attention the way Ryan Reynolds stuck in a coffin for 90 minutes could. Too bad they didn’t study the psychic field a bit more. Then maybe Red Lights could have been a bit more hypnotic.

Score: 2/5

[BD Review] ‘Red Lights’ Is A Misguided And Boring Waste Of Potential

Posted by MrDisgusting on July 13, 2012 @ 11:10am
Related Tags: Cillian Murphy, psychic, Red Lights, review, Robert DeNiro, Rodrigo Cortes, Sigourney Weaver, Sundance, Cillian Murphy, Elizabeth Olsen, Joely Richardson, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Red Lights, Robert De Niro, Sigourney Weaver, Toby Jones

Now in theaters everywhere is Red Lights, Rodrigo Cortes’ followup to his Sundance hit Buried.

BD’s Ryan Daley wrote in with his review from last Sundance (we’re republishing it) – to say he didn’t care for the film would be putting it mildly.

“What’s most frustrating about Red Lights is that it’s one of those movies that seems like it’s going to get better at any given second. The performances are great; you can tell the entire cast believes in this thing. But ultimately, the movie serves as the perfect example of an excellent idea, poorly executed. Even the final twist is poorly conceived, packing far less of a punch than Cortes probably intended––sort of an “anti-payoff”, in the words of one colleague.”

In the film, “Robert De Niro stars as Simon Silver, a legendary psychic, perhaps the most famously gifted of all time, who returns after thirty years of mysterious absence to become the world’s greatest challenge to orthodox science and professional skeptics. Meanwhile, paranormal fraud investigator Tom (Cillian Murphy) begins to develop a dense obsession Silver, whose magnetism is enhanced dangerously with each new manifestation of inexplicable phenomena.”

Click the title for the entire review or return here to write your own this weekend.

Red Lights

Posted by Bloody Disgusting Staff on January 23, 2012 @ 12:00am

Buried was one of my favorite films of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, a riveting white-knuckler
that left me drooling for another Rodrigo Cortes movie. I was an immediate fan. When Red Lights was announced as Cortes’ next project, the high-powered cast (Cillian Murphy! Sigourney Weaver!
Robert DeNiro!) and the high-concept premise (Paranormal Investigators Bust Murderous Psychic!)
sounded like a potent combination. On paper, at least. But while Buried had its Sundance audience
squirming in suspense, Red Lights left them squirming in outright boredom.

The problem certainly isn’t with the concept, with is pretty damn cool. Weaver and Murphy play
university doctors out to debunk any paranormal fakers, and when a reclusive psychic (DeNiro) returns to
the public eye after a 30-year absence, they are compelled to investigate his new tactics. Now that sounds
like a movie I’d like to see. Unfortunately, that’s not the movie writer/director Rodrigo Cortes chose to
make.

Although DeNiro is established as the villain early on, most of Red Lights is devoted to developing
the interpersonal relationships of the characters, and DeNiro is repeatedly pushed to the background.
Instead of focusing on his script’s most compelling element, Cortes chooses to pump his movie full of
episodic moments straight out of an amateur Ghostbusters sequel . Weaver and Murphy bust a
table-rocking psychic, a manipulative healer, an ESP faker, etc. Every once in a while a line of dialogue
will remind the audience that the evil DeNiro is the focus of the film, but it doesn’t take long for Cortes
to drift back to boring background shit involving his characters. We learn that Sigourney Weaver’s son
is on life support, Cillian Murphy is crushing on a student (Elizabeth Olson: super-cute, as always, but
given literally NOTHING to do here)––oh, and don‘t forget, eventually they’ll get around to taking down
DeNiro. Eventually.

What’s most frustrating about Red Lights is that it’s one of those movies that seems like it’s going
to get better at any given second. The performances are great; you can tell the entire cast believes
in this thing. But ultimately, the movie serves as the perfect example of an excellent idea, poorly executed.
Even the final twist is poorly conceived, packing far less of a punch than Cortes probably intended––sort of
an “anti-payoff”, in the words of one colleague. Occasionally posing as a horror movie, Red Light’s melodrama is sometimes goosed with a gratingly loud sound sting, but don’t let that fool you. Rather
than scare, Cortes is just looking to wake up his dozing audience.