Review: Red Lights (2012)

[GregMO ROberts]

Dr. Margaret Matheson (Sigourney Weaver) is a psychologist who works as an investigator of paranormal phenomena with her partner Tom Buckley (Cillian Murphy). The two routinely get called in when the unexplained needs explaining and their research has uncovered frauds in everything from ghost haunting to mind readers. In fact, Margaret and Tom have not found one case where a ‘supernatural’ occurrence could not be explained or dedunked.

But the duo might just get their toughest case yet when renowned psychic Simon Silver (Robert DeNiro) resurfaces after a long self-imposed retirement. Silver is blind but his powers are legendary.

For reasons that are explained far into the film’s running time, Margaret seems to want to steer clear of Simon Silver and has no interest in putting his so-called powers to the test. But Tom is determined to expose Silver and when an unfortunate accident occurs just past the half way mark, Tom goes into full unwavering mode.

Directed by Rodrigo Cortés (Buried), Red Lights has a lot of real interesting pieces at work here - especially in the first half of the film. Weaver and Murphy are believable in their respective roles and supporting turns by Elizabeth Olsen and Toby Jones add to the competency of the call sheet.

Both Margaret and Tom have secrets from each other that are slowly uncovered as the plot thickens with Silver’s return. And watching the two in action revealing the tricks behind both personal and stage performers should be a calling card for the many that believe in these sorts of shenanigans. The film therefore gets its name from the clues that these performers leave in their defrauding – clues that Margaret likes to call ‘red lights’.

Unfortunately, the biggest plot turn just over half way through the film takes things in a direction we found less interesting. Although Robert DeNiro actually looks as if he is interested in a role for the first time in years, the dealings and relationships between Simon and Tom were far less engrossing than the travelling work detail of the Margaret and Tom pairing.

There is another plot twist at the conclusion of the film that will either be exhilarating or wonky depending on how your positioned yourself prior to the reveal. We felt indifferent to the turn and shrugged it off as nothing more than Hollywood tomfoolery.

As the resulting chips fell where they may, we were left with an interesting yet uneven film. Weaver was the glue that held things together and her lack of involvement deeper into the film drops the entertainment factor down a few notches.

Still, it was DeNiro’s best work in years. And Murphy is always fun to watch as is Olsen and Jones. We would recommend this one, but we do want to throw up a yellow light as a caution that it is neither as good as it could have been or bad as it might have been in different hands.

[Dusty B]

Sounds like it's in line with most of the other reviews I've come across; good first half, mess of a second. And after Godsend and Hide & Seek, I kind of cringe when I see De Niro in genre fare anymore. Or anything at all now, truth be told.