Director Paul McGuigan (Lucky Number Slevin) has crafted a good-looking supernatural thriller with Push. However, serious plot issues – and obvious lifts from other properties – hurt the film.
Push Stars Chris Evans, Dakota Fanning, Djimon Hounsu, Camilla Belle
Nick (Chris Evans) and Cassie (Dakota Fanning) are two psychics living in Hong Kong, hiding from the Division, a mysterious US government organization that seeks to control those with psychic abilities. Nick is a Mover, otherwise known as a telekinetic, while Cassie has visions of the future, which she sketches into her notebook.
When Nick's former girlfriend Kira (Camilla Belle) escapes the Division's clutches with a syringe containing a serum that enhances psychic abilities, she becomes the focus of a manhunt led by the Division's top agent Henry Carver (Djimon Hounsu). Kira and Carver are Pushers, the most dangerous of psychics: capable of manipulating people via planting thoughts in their heads. Carver not only wants the syringe back but he wants Kira, since she's the only psychic who has ever survived taking the serum. With Kira and the serum, Carver hopes to create an unstoppable army of combat psychics.
Nick and Cassie want that syringe so they can take down the Division, and save themselves from a death that Cassie keeps constantly predicting. But there's yet another complication: a family of psychic gangsters who want the serum too.
Push Strongly Derivative of Heroes, X-Men
If you're seeing shades of The X-Men, The Matrix, The X-Files and Heroes in the above description, you're not alone. The concept of a clairvoyant sketching the future seems directly pulled from the latter show's troubled precog Isaac Mendez; Fanning downing a bottle of booze to boost her abilities is strongly reminiscent of Mendez' heroin use.
The filmmakers are extremely sensitive about Heroes comparisons: the publicity proclaims that Push was conceived in 2005, one year before the top-rated TV show made its debut. That begs the question: how long was Heroes floating around before NBC picked it up, and who else saw the proposal?
Push also has some serious issues, plot-wise. David Bourla's script could be used to sieve spaghetti, and the Amazing Coincidental Machine makes some unwelcome appearances – a falling corpse just happens to get our hero out of a tight spot. The characters have some potential (just which side is Kira on, anyway?) but they still come off as underwritten, despite the actors' best efforts.
Another problem is Fanning's narrated introduction, which violates the Screenwriting 101 rule: 'show, don't tell.' It seems tacked on to address studio criticisms: McGuigan and Bourla should have worked it to show the audience that infodump, not tell us.
On the plus side, the action sequences rock. One scene featuring a pair of Movers stalking each other with levitating pistols works beautifully and the climactic showdown – where psychics take on machinegun-toting gangsters in a rooftop battle – is a white-knuckle ride.
Former photographer Paul McGuigan has a wonderful visual sense, and filming Push in Hong Kong was an inspired choice. Perhaps too inspired: the scenery occasionally distracted from the events unfolding on-screen.
Evans (Fantastic Four) has a habit of being the best thing in less-than-stellar fare, and this film is no different. However, he's in good company with Fanning (Coraline), Belle (10,000 BC) and Hounsu (Blood Diamond). Fanning is note-perfect as the little girl trying to keep it together in the face of her seemingly inevitable demise, while Belle pulls off a sympathetic character who may or may not be one of the good guys. Hounsu approaches Samuel L. Jackson's level of menace without the latter's tendency towards scenery-chewing. These are all excellent actors who deserve better.
The Final Analysis
Push has its moments, but Heroes' creators may be calling their lawyers after seeing this flick. Despite an impressive visual style (that occasionally overshadows the story) and some gripping action sequences, this film wears its influences too obviously on its sleeve. Add a porous plot that violates the basic dictum 'show, don't tell' and you have a movie that doesn't rise above the sum of its parts.
It gets a 5/10.
 |
