The I Inside

This is a little seen thriller and it's almost a shame, because it has quite a few good ideas. Some work, some might not work for you, but the overall story is very complex and very well told. It's not a movie, where you could say exactly where it is going. I don't think you could tell unless you had read quite a few articles on the film, which would be a shame.

But Ryan Phillipe does a great job, conveying this complex and very difficult emotional role he has to play. It's not only trying to keep up, where you are exactly (in the script), but in the overall structure of the movie. I know that some think that it does fall short towards the end, and I get the sentiment. But I still think the ending is pretty strong, to still make you rather like the viewing, than not.

Like with Memento, another film dealing with memory loss, it takes some time to get used to the storytelling. The main reason is that no one explains nothing at first... clues come all along the movie up until the end. You're not taken by the hand and shown anything. Like the main character, you're thrown in the story with no real point of reference and it takes some adjusting.

But that's also what makes the movie interesting. The ending can be perceived as weak if you're watching it like a thriller but if you're looking at it from a psychological point of view, it's really impressive what our minds can do and the mysteries still to unlock in our own brains.

The acting is pretty good (except Piper Perabo who is not good enough to be creepy or believable as anything else than a goodie-2-shoes) and the direction is SUPERB.

Don't misunderstand, the tension IS there so you'll get your thrills but it's not a mystery movie so much as a psychological drama about denial and acceptance. In the end that's all there is to it.

Don't take my word for it... check it out as soon as you can.

Considering how great this movie was in the beginning I was stunned why I had never heard of it or why it only got a rating of 6.0 on IMDb. It had to have something to do with how the story unfolded. Turns out, that this is indeed the problem. The first 45 minutes of "The I Inside" are really a blast. The story sucks you in immediately and unfolds beautifully until a certain point is reached where the writer lost control and messed up what had been set up so well. All of a sudden the story's getting way over the top, apparently for no other reason than to keep the viewer puzzled. That wouldn't have been necessary. They could have taken the story anywhere as intriguing as it started. Unfortunately, the plot becomes uneven when the "rules" of the movie are adapted arbitrarily. The final solution doesn't really come as a surprise anymore. Worse still, it's not good enough to explain everything. It's obvious that there are mistakes and flaws throughout the script and it's a shame, because, as I've said, unlike a lot of other movies where the story is already set up for an impossible, unbelievable ending, "The I Inside" had a more than promising start. Anyway, although the movie isn't completely satisfying and kind of stumbles over its own feet, it's still very entertaining to watch. It has an atmospheric stage play-like atmosphere (in fact, the story has been adapted from a play called "Point Of Death") and there are some really creative suspense scenes. Summing up, "The I Inside" isn't the masterpiece it could have been, but it's a nice way to spend 90 minutes.

The first two-thirds of "The I Inside" are fantastic: very intriguing and engaging, recalls "The Butterfly Effect", "Jacob's Ladder" and "identity", just to mention three similar movies. The situation of Simon Cable resuscitated without memory in the hospital in two different years is disclosed like a puzzle, and I was mesmerized with this film. Unfortunately, it seems that the screenplay writer raised so many weird situations that he was not able to conciliate all of them in a satisfactory ending, and indeed the plot has a very disappointing conclusion. I regret and feel sorry, since this movie could have been a masterpiece of the genre. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "O Terceiro Olho" ("The Third Eye")

Highly entertaining movie, admittedly derivative of old suspense melodramas, full of common places and clichés, but tightly done. I watched it because I liked other works by director Roland Suso Richter, but I was very pleased to also find Ryan Phillippe doing a fine job, with good support from Sarah Polley, Robert Sean Leonard, Piper Perabo, the three Stephens and the rest of the cast in supporting but key roles.

At its core, it is a family drama, an upper-class sibling drama, a tale of betrayal, blackmail, fatal accidents, and apparent insanity: actually more than a "time travel" film, as seen by some, it is a story told simultaneously in planes of the same reality separated by two years, the story of a young man who goes from the year 2000 to 2002, to put together the puzzle in front of him when he forgets his past, after an accident in which he lost his life for a few minutes and was resurrected by a medical team.

The adaptation from stage to film is quite remarkable, I cannot imagine how this was made in theater, and although it relies a lot on the spoken word it is highly attractive from the visual point of view, thanks to the contribution of the cinematography, and the art and design departments. Besides, the score is typical of the ones composed for this kind of suspenseful fantasies, but it effectively helps the evolution of the plot, building tension without overdoing its function. Recommended.