Push

Dir: Paul McGuigan

2009

*

2009’s Push is a fantasy action film of sorts that features people with special powers fighting with one another. It’s not a superhero film, it’s not much of a thriller, it has action in it but isn’t the best action film and it is about as formulaic as it gets. An exciting premise but a woefully dull film. Chris Evans plays Nick, a guy in his late twenties who has been on the run and in hiding ever since his father was killed by a secret government agency that likes to experiment on people with secret superhuman abilities. These superhuman abilities are separated into categories. They include; Watchers – who have the ability to foresee the future to varying degrees enhanced by consumption of alcohol; Movers – people with telekinetic powers basically, they can throw stuff at you without having to lift their arms; Pushers – people with the ability to implant memories in others, leading to the film’s only good bit; Bleeders – the most bizarre of all the powers, Bleeders have the ability to smash glass and burst people’s blood vessels when they scream (they have a tendency to break fish tanks); Sniffs - Sniffs are highly developed psychometrics who can track the location of people or objects over varying distances just by sniffing objects they have come in contact with (they have a penchant for tooth brushes); Shifters – they can temporarily alter the appearance of an object by manipulating patterns of light interacting with it, like changing the colour of a suitcase; Wipers – the most unfortunately named of the superhumans, Wipers are skilled at either temporarily or permanently erasing other people’s memories; Shadows - trained to block the visions of other clairvoyants, such as Sniffs, by diverting the attention of the target radius so that they "flicker" through different locations other than the subject's actual whereabouts; Stitches - psychic healers trained to quickly reconstruct cells to their previous or healthy state. Cool super abilities you might think, but the problem is that the Watchers are rubbish at predicting the future; the Movers don’t move much; the Bleeders are hilarious, when they are supposed to be feared; the Sniffs come across as pant-sniffing deviants; the Shifters have a woeful lack of imagination; the Wipers are a bit rubbish and a bit redundant compared to the Pushers; the Shadows are a bit boring and the Stitches make everything seem less dangerous and therefore less exciting. The Pushers are the most interesting of the super persons but again, their lack of imagination lets them down. There is one great scene whereby a Pusher gets one up on a Sniffer but it is short and the level of excitement is never repeated. The story is thin and full of holes, director Paul McGuigan – a director I really like – said that he did a lot of research into secret Cold War experiments and that there is a lot of truth to the film. I call bovine fecal matter on that. He set the film in Hong Kong, saying that he was inspired to do so by the classic 1940s film Casablanca – Casablanca being a den for scoundrels in the 1930s. McGuigan suggested Hong Kong in the 2000’s was the Casablanca of the day, insulting seven million people in one go. McGuigan also stated that he kept the special effects to a minimum, recalling the great directors who didn’t have such effects at their disposal but made up for it with their imaginations. He also film much of the film guerrilla-style, making it look like it was directed by a bunch of kids on their Dad’s video camera. It is possibly the most uninteresting action-thriller I’ve ever seen. The story is convoluted and puzzling but I didn’t feel too upset about feeling a bit lost because after just a few minutes I realised that I really didn’t care that much. The problem with having so many characters with various different abilities is that the writers forgot who could do what and why they were doing what they were doing. For instance, Nick’s ex-girlfriend is looking for him to seek his help. As soon as she finds him she starts shooting at him until he manages to stop her. Later in the film she is convinced by a Pusher that he is the bad guy, and one begins to realise that the film is so poorly edited and so ridiculously convoluted, that the writers have clearly confused themselves, all continuity has gone out the window and what is left is a huge mess of running around, lifeless action scenes and a load of exploding fish tanks.