Movie Review Red Lights English 2012

Thriller. Directed by Rodrigo Cortés. Starring Robert De Niro, Sigourney Weaver and Cillian Murphy. (R. 113 minutes.) (courtesy : SFGate)

All is not what it seems in "Red Lights," a paranormal thriller from Rodrigo Cortés, the director of "Buried." And that's as it should be: By strict definition, any movie featuring Robert De Niro as a spoon-bending clairvoyant superstar ought to hold a few cards up its sleeve.

When its biggest trick is finally revealed, it is not entirely satisfying. What seemed for the better part of two hours to be a skeptic's exploration of fraudulent hooey becomes softer and squishier with emotional revelation, a meditation, in fact, on existential loneliness run amok. Which is fine, for Batman. I am not sure it works here.

But for all its flaws, "Red Lights" is certainly never dull; there are so many engaging actors chewing so much scenery. It may not be the acme of cinematic perfection, but what nutty fun to find De Niro howling "I am the life force! I come with the wind, and I go with the wind!" before a packed theater.

Through most of the film, De Niro lurks on the film's periphery as the mysteriously gifted bogeyman who just might be a crock. At the forefront are Drs. Matheson (Sigourney Weaver), a psychologist, and Buckley (Cillian Murphy), a physicist, who teach a university class in psychic debunking and spend their spare time catching diviners and deceivers in the act.

Cortés' screenplay delves into character just enough to make things interesting: Matheson, we learn, is an atheist who refuses to unplug a comatose son and send him into the void. Buckley speaks moistly of charlatans who give false hope. (Murphy, the conflicted young scion of "Inception," is a fine one for speaking moistly on almost any topic.)

If the movie doesn't succeed as a whole, most of its parts are plenty watchable. And Cortés, whose "Buried" confined the action to a casket and the cast to Ryan Reynolds, uses the extra space and added thespians to play around with a more explosive, expansive theatricality.

There's something old-fashioned about it all, from the moodiness and spittle-heavy drama to the "red lights," both literal and figurative - cues that suggest something's amiss. But most of the cues are way too obvious; one major revelation has a "well, duh" aspect that viewers should deduce from the opening minutes. And frankly, in this savvy age it's hard to imagine a character like De Niro's causing any kind of sizable media storm.

Rating : 4/5

Movie Review Red Lights English 2012, English Movie Review