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must shamefully admit that "The I
Inside" got me. Using my prodigious movie IQ, which is really quite
enormous (just go with it), I thought I had figured out everything there was
to figure out about German Roland Suso Richter's movie. Time travel, I
thought. It's another time travel movie about some guy trying to change the
past, who encounters snags along the way. Shockingly, the film turned out to
be a Mind Trip movie (known in vulgar corners as Mind F--k), one of those
films where nothing is what it seems, and the entire film is basically a
run-up to the movie's Big Reveal. The best Mind Trip movies manage to leave
clues here and there for the audience to try to figure out, but of course
they won't be able to, simply because a Mind Trip film wouldn't work if it could
be figured out. As such, when the Big Reveal comes, it's a major surprise to
everyone but the filmmaker. "The I Inside" is such a movie.
Ryan Phillippe (known nowadays as
Mr. Reese Witherspoon) is Simon Cable, a car accident victim who wakes up in
a hospital with no memories of the last two years. He's told by good-humored
Doctor Newman (Stephen Rea) that he actually died for two minutes after the
accident, before coming back to life on the operating table. Simon soon
learns that he's married to cold fish Anna (Piper Perabo), but is really in
love with Clair (Sarah Polley, "Dawn
of the Dead"). If losing his memory wasn't bad enough, Simon starts
to shift back and forth between time -- two years, to be exact. He is
reliving his experiences at the same hospital in the past and the present,
but why, and what does all of it have to do with the death of his brother
Peter?
One would be justified in pointing an accusing finger
at the script by Michael Cooney (who also penned the Mind Trip film "Identity")
and Timothy Bogart for conning the audience. Up until its Third Act, the
film gives the impression of being a time travel movie, where actions in
the past affects the present, and the gimmick is for the hero to bounce
back and forth in time trying to get his bearings to right a wrong, using
his knowledge of the two timelines to make his move. In fact, the movie
goes out of its way to play up the time travel angle, only to pull a,
"Gotcha! We were just kidding!" on the audience. The moment the
script shows its true colors, everything we've just seen for the past 70
or so minutes goes out the window. As such, you would almost be forgiven
for hating the movie for such blatant trickery.
The film starts out well, mostly because Ryan
Phillippe does an admirable job portraying the confused Simon. Phillippe
has been a favorite actor of mine ever since he tried to kill half of
Mexico with the assistance of Benicio Del Toro in the crime caper "Way
of the Gun". Phillippe is more Everyman here, trying desperately
to put pieces of a screwed up puzzle together. Less successful is Perabo
and Polley, playing Phillippe's scheming wife and his demure lover,
respectively. Polley in particular looks sickly, as if she hadn't eaten a
thing in days during the entire production. Perabo is slightly more
successful, and looks very enticing in tight black leather. The scene
where Perabo's meek nurse turns devilish is quite good.
Director Roland Richter brings some nice technical
pizzazz with him over from Germany, and the film looks and feels expensive
without drawing attention to itself. It's in the Big Reveal that Richter
doesn't quite earn his paycheck, as the film basically crawls through its
payoff, offering little pacing and managing to generate almost no
excitement. When all the secrets are revealed, you'd expect a little
energy or exhilaration; not so here, as the whole thing comes by way of
exposition, and it has all the "pop" of a funeral march. Which,
I suppose, might be the appropriate atmosphere, considering what the
revelation entails. Then again, after running through hoops just to get
here, the least Richter and company could do was make the whole thing
exciting.
Viewers shouldn't bother trying to guess "The I
Inside", as it's simply impossible to do so. As with other Mind Trip
movies (Cameron Crowe's "Vanilla
Sky" comes to mind), there are no coherent hints dropped into the
movie for the audience to rightly guess the ultimate outcome. Oh sure, all
those mysterious faces and seemingly different incarnations of random
people are eventually explained, but it's not like anyone watching the
film cold could ever, in a million lifetimes, figure out where all the
puzzles go the first time around. But I suppose that's the whole point of
Mind Trip films, as it's not about being fair with the audience, but
rather about getting one over on the audience.
To be fair, there have been many movies that have
taken the same road that "The I Inside" did, but for some reason
I find "Inside's" use of the time travel angle to be somewhat
insidious. Perhaps it's just my ego talking, as the movie did pulled a
switch-and-bait on me and I never saw it coming, but there is something to
be said about a movie that tries to play fair. In fact, I'm not sure if
"The I Inside" wouldn't have worked better as a trippy time
travel movie, as the film's first 70 minutes are it's most engaging and
fun. Then again, I've always been a sucker for time travel movies.
Despite an irritating "gotcha" Third Act
that offers little satisfaction, there are 70 minutes of "The I
Inside" that is recommended. As such, it earns a 3-star rating, if
only because it delivers solid fun while the time travel narrative was in
effect. Too bad the movie kept going beyond those 70 minutes.
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