Eye Candy #602 - "Red Lights"

Red Lights:  I don’t use the word ‘pretentious’ often, but when I do it’s usually well-deserved and this is a pretentious film.  A paranormal thriller from Spanish director Rodrigo Cortes (his most recent offering was “Buried” with Ryan Reynolds), it’s the story of two academics who professionally debunk paranormal phenomenon: Margaret Matheson (Sigourney Weaver) and her assistant Tom Buckley (Cillian Murphy).   As they progress with their work, a reclusive, famed psychic named Simon Silver (a miscast Robert DeNiro as the messianic, blind Silver) comes out of a thirty-year retirement, a Yuri Geller spoon-bending type who was never debunked and stirs great interest among the general public.  Buckley feels that Silver is a perfect target for their work, but Matheson refuses to pursue him due to a past history with the man.  Circumstances force Buckley to go after Silver alone, to expose him on his own, as weird, nightmarish happenings start to swirl around Buckley.  Joely Richardson, Toby Jones (who will apparently co-star in anything thrown his way), and Elizabeth Olsen are here in support.  While the premise is intriguing (debunking the unbunkable), the execution is duller than dirt.  DeNiro and Weaver speak wooden dialogue like automatons – they don’t talk like people talk.  The build-up to the “reveal” at the end is largely unsatisfying not to mention barely supported by anything that came before.  And I don’t know what the obsession is with European film directors in general (and Spanish directors, specifically) to put deep philosophical weight behind their “thriller” films instead of just letting the thrills speak for themselves, but it usually slows a film way, way down, which it does here.   You can be too nebulous for your own (and the audience’s) good.  Woodchuck sez, “Skip it.”