SELF/LESS - review

SELF/LESS

Director: Tarsem Singh

Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Ben Kingsley, Natalie Martinez, Matthew Goode, Victor Garber

OK, so here's the deal, SELF/LESS is getting a pretty bum rap from a lot of critics out there, and I can appreciate why, but for all it's plot holes, replications, lagging and aesthetic blandness, SELF/LESS will have some appeal with the general public (GP). 

Here's how the film goes: 1%-er Damian Hale (Ben Kingsley) is dying. His body is riddled with cancer that cannot be cured, so upon finding a mysterious business card he discovers a man (Matthew Goode) and a company who can transplant his mind into a lab-grown body so he can go on living his life. Hale is the kind of 1%-er who thinks his cheque book can solve all the problems in the world, including the ones with his estranged daughter (Michelle Dockery), so he throws down 250 million big ones and goes ahead with this "shedding" process. In goes Hale and out comes Edward (Ryan Reynolds), not a bad trade if you ask me. 

waking up in a new bod - Ben Kingsley goes in Ryan Reynolds comes out 

images via Universal Pictures

Edward begins his rehab process, including getting a new life story, learning to be a human again (because apparently transplanting your brain into another body means you have to learn all your fine motor skills again), and taking the anti-rejection medication daily. One skipped pill leaves Edward crippled by hallucinations that feel way more like flashbacks, and leaves him questioning the whole shebang. Delving deeper into the whole mess he finds out that his brand, spanking new body is not actually brand, spanking new and once belonged to a man named Mark, who had a family and made a life changing decision to save his daughter. 

Chase, fight, chase, fight, blow torch, gun fire, chase, yell, frighten the hell out of people who thought you were dead, chase, fight, blow torch chase. Apparently the afore mentioned company doesn't want him to find out about the whole bod snatching thing (one can only imagine why), and the whole thing goes belly up. 

Tarsem Singh is an awesome filmmaker, giving us gems like THE CELL, and I had high hopes when I heard he was on board for SELF/LESS. Unfortunately he doesn't quite hit the mark with SELF/LESS, not all his fault - some blame must lay with the writers here. The film doesn't delve into the myriad of philosophical issues it raises and barely touches on anything with real meaning, which is a shame because it could have had much more depth than it did. Aesthetically the film didn't really work for me as well as some of Singh's other films, and the flow of the film was pretty clunky and lagged a little in the second half. 

There is a lot in this film that rings a familiar bell and that isn't surprising, there are ideas, themes and plot twists from pretty much every bod-swap movie ever made, in particular SECONDS, a piece of cinema from 1966 in which a wealthy but unhappy banker gets a facelift and ends up looking like Rock Hudson. Sadly all the borrowing makes the film feel very same-samey, and had the writers chosen to do so they could have made it less sci/fi-action and more sci/fi-drama and explored some of the issues the other bod-swap movies don't do. There's a veritable smorgasbord of options in the narrative of this film and no one even takes a sniff, let alone a bite. Shame I say. 

hello  blow-torch

image via Universal Pictures

Ben Kingsley introduces us to Damian as a cruel, heartless, 1%-er who cares for little more than money and power even in death. Reynolds' version of Damian is a reformed man with a heart that has appeared out of no-wheresville and doesn't gel at all with Kingsley's Damian. Massive plot hole there, both versions of the character are perfect for the part of the story they're in, but they don't go together, there is no character development that shows us how we get from one to the other. Matthew Goode brings a nice spark to his jerk-hole character (CEO of the shedding company, Albright), which had someone else played that role seemed stiff, but he brought a nice little something-something to life in Albright. The other supporting cast do lovely things with the little screen time they have, and in my opinion deserved more. Cut out the gratuitous and never ending action, and put a little bit more meat into the story!

I get the feeling that Reynolds is trying to branch out away from Hollywood heart throb to tough action guy (think Jason Statham style, who would have been a nice fit for this role), but I don't know that it's really working for him. GREEN LANTERN worked for him because of the genre and the romance in that film, and I am just not sure that sci/fi looks good on him. I mean, most things look good on him, but I don't think he's quite got whatever it is that this film needed. He brought a great balance of humor, emotion and action, but something about him just didn't sit right. Maybe it was the script, maybe it was him, maybe it's me type-casting him, I don't know, and I'd be willing to give him another try in a film like this to see what happens. 

Goode & Reynolds in a little shoot out - that's bullet proof glass yo!

image via Universal Pictures

For GP who aren't into this genre and who haven't seen a bod-swap film before, and are maybe only catching it to see what Hollywood heart-throb Reynolds is up to of late, then I think they will find the film full of exciting twists and turns, some great action scenes - hello blow-torch - and an all round decent enough film. For those who are into this kind of thing and are familiar with the genre, I think you'll be disappointed. Singh has put together an enjoyable film, but it is predictable and a bit flat which ruins all the good things he does do. Overall I think SELF/LESS could have been amazing, but it was just too much of a mish-mash rehash to make it. I don't recommend spending the 20-something dollars on this film, wait for it on Netflix or Foxtel or Apple TV or whatever medium you use.

2 out of 5

xoxo
The Blonde Bombshell