What do you say when everything you've just witnessed is as down the middle as you could imagine? There was an undercurrent of suspicion, hope, and possibility given the sheltered release date that strive to place
Self/less as alternative programming. It seemed, if nothing else, like a safe action bet in the vein of
Safe House to mainstream movie-goers with added credentials of Ben Kingsley and director Tarsem Singh (
The Fall, Immortals) for those more invested in current cinema. Singh is known for insane and typically crazily creative visuals, but all of those touches are for the most part absent here as Ryan Reynolds tries once again to prove that he can be good in a dramatic role. Ultimately, we are taken through a few action beats and little more. When the most unique aspect of a Singh picture is some of its editing choices, one has to wonder what brought him to the project and what made him choose this traditional and standard approach to the material rather than adding his own flourishes. Whatever the reasoning might have been, what the director delivers with the final product is a perfectly fine piece of entertainment that operates in the sci-fi/action genre but does little to expound on it's rather interesting premise. It eventually devolves into a series of chase scenes. The first hour or so of the film had me going along with it as we are given the outline for the somewhat complicated main idea. What would you do if we were able to manufacture immortality? The question is posed up front and in our main character falling victim to the possibilities of such promises Singh expertly paces (again, thanks to some nice editing choices) the first half of the film to methodically execute the questions that would naturally arise around such power. Singh then sets up the possible avenues for where the remainder of the film might go. It is the choice of writers David and Alex Pastor to go the route of the bad guys hunting down their rogue experiment that damns the film from becoming more than just that middle of the road movie.
Self/less certainly had potential but out of nothing more than laziness and wanting to avoid more complicated, thought-provoking territory that potential was squandered on a film that will be easily forgotten.
