CIA agent Bill Pope (Ryan Reynolds) is killed by a Spanish anarchist Heimbahl (Jordi Molla) while on a mission to retrieve a wormhole programme from Dutch hacker Jan Stroop (Michael Pitt) but through a new technology under development by Dr.Franks (Tommy Lee Jones), it is theoretically possible to transfer the thoughts of the dead agent into another body so CIA director Quaker Wells (Gary Oldman) decides to green light the procedure. The most suitable subject that can be found is an imprisoned killer Jericho Stewart (Kevin Costner) who suffered frontal lobe damage as a child, which is just the area of the brain that needs to be stimulated for this experiment.

Great cast, good premise, sounds like we are onto a winner! Unfortunately somewhere in the translation this movie fell way short. Costner plays the part well, suffering with the duality of the situation as memories kick in and out but the script of the movie has him changing from uncontrollable killer, which he plays superbly (and check out the very underrated Mr.Brooks for a similar but even better performance) to a man fighting with the memories in his mind and it’s when he shows these signs of emotions, especially towards Popes wife (Gal Gadot) that the film becomes mundane. One minute he can speak French, the next minute he’s punching someone in the face, then he’s apologising. I realise that this is trying to portray the turmoil inside Costners brain but it doesn’t work well within the confines of the film.

Oldman is as over the top as ever but again, once Costner wakes up from the operation he wants the information out of his head within minutes and when he doesn’t get it he orders Costner killed, that doesn’t make any sense to me since the operation was experimental and nobody could predict the results, surely giving the situation a bit of time would have been a normal decision and Tommy Lee Jones feels like a bit part player who drifts in and out of the movie and only seems to show up for exposition when he needs to explain something further about the situation or the operation

I don’t know if the issue is with the direction or the script but in the end the movie turns into a science fiction, action, thriller that never gives any reasoning for why characters are acting as they do. Why does Heimbahl want to destroy the world? Why did the Dutchman put his programme up for sale on the internet instead of doing a private deal? Why does Oldman dismiss the experiment that he sanctioned so quickly? Why does Tommy Lee Jones just accept being blackballed from his ground breaking experiment so easily? Why does Gal Gadot accept a killer into her and more importantly, her child’s life so readily, even if he does have memories of her husband?

It’s these unanswered questions which detract from what could have been a good movie as there is a decent premise behind the mess with some good themes of redemption that could have been utilised to much greater effect.

DJ Speaks Rating: 4.5 Out Of 10