Self/less
Year of release : 2015
Run time : 1h57m
Genre : Sci Fi / Thriller
Cast : Ryan Reynolds, Matthew Goode, Ben Kingsley
Damian Hale is a New York billionaire who has terminal cancer. He finds a business card with Phoenix Biogenic credentials on it, and contacts the owner, professor Albright. The professor tells him he developed a safe and expensive procedure, in which Damian’s consciousness will be transferred into a new body, which he says has been grown in the lab.
Damian has a daughter, he’s been trying to reconnect with, but she doesn’t like him much because she thinks he’s trying to buy her affection with money, as whenever he comes to see her, he offers her money.
Damian does his research on “shedding”, and after an episode due to his terminal cancer, in which he almost died, he signs a contract with Phoenix Biogenic.
Professor Albright tells him his death needs to be public, so everyone will know he’s dead, and if he sees someone from his past, he needs to ignore them, as he’ll assume someone else’s identity.
So, he drinks coffee, after which he has an allergic reaction. He is taken to the Phoenix quarters, and his consciousness is transferred into a young body.
He needs to learn how to walk again, and Albright gives him pills to take, as Damian says he has hallucinations. The pills are only 7, and need to be refilled every 7 days. He assumes the identity of Edward Kidner.
Damian as Edward, moves to New Orleans, and receives weekly visits from Albright, who asks him about how he’s feeling, and renews his pills.
Damian befriends a man who says his name is Anton, who takes him out, and he starts to enjoy life, goes out with many women, and eats the things he was allergic to, like peanut butter.
One day he doesn’t take his pill, for the woman he’s with takes him back to bed, and he has flashes of another life. A life in which he was a soldier, and was married, having a daughter with cancer. Albright tells him it’s because he didn’t take the medication, and it’s just hallucinations due to his feelings for his daughter. Albright makes the mistake of calling the wife in his hallucination Latina, while Damian never mentioned her race.
Albright sends him to Hawaii, and while packing, Damian researches the places he’s seen in his hallucinations, and discovers they are real. And goes to Saint Louis, Missouri. He finds the exact house, a farm with a horse, and walking through the house sees pictures of the man who’s body he’s inhabiting with the woman.
The woman finds him in her house, and starts crying, thinking her husband dead. Albright’s men come for him, trying to k1ll the woman and take him back to the headquarters to give the body to someone who wants it. But Damian discovers he has some new skills due to the man’s soldier training, surprising them all.
He takes the woman and the little girl who is fine now, trying to keep them safe from Albright.
I personally enjoyed the movie.
Damian is a man with a conscience, who after hearing what’s truly going on, can’t live knowing he took another man’s body, although the man signed a contract, giving his body for a certain amount of money his family needed. I think he could have kept the body, considering Mark (the name of the man in who’s body he is in) accepted to give his body away for a certain amount of money. What do you think, is it Ok, as long as there was a transaction?
Albright is not necessarily evil, as he discovered how to do this particular thing, and is asking people willing to give their body away for science, to be his Guinee pig, for a certain amount of money. He is not kidnapping people, not taking anyone against their will, I’m just curious how did he get his assistant’s body though.
The bit with Anton, who keeps on exchanging bodies, as he keeps on dying, reminded me of the 2000 movie, “The 6th day”.
The pills keep Damian’s consciousness in Mark’s body, pushing Mark’s memories away.
I liked the places where they filmed, the houses were so beautiful, inside and out. Damian’s house was Donald Trump’s Trump Tower penthouse.
I liked the fighting scenes.
The acting was good.
The soundtrack was good. I didn’t like the Jazzy street music, which appears twice for quite some time.
The visual effects were good.
The movie received reviews under 34% from the critics and under 61% from the audiences of platforms like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic.
Cinema score audiences graded the movie a B+.
The movie grossed almost 32 million dollars at the box office, against a budget of 26 million dollars.
Ryan Reynolds played in a similar movie around the same time, Criminal (2016).
You can find the movie for free, on the Ok.Ru platform.
Rating : Worth a watch !