96 Souls

Extraordinary storytelling and writing for this low-budget feature film. Science meets God when a doctor discovers a chemical formula that allows the human eye to see the essence of energy. The story makes a play for the advancement of psychoactive drugs. The "see smells" and 96 souls scenes are well worth the wait. The protagonist Dr. Jack Surtree "has it all" on the surface, yet his personal life is falling apart. He is facing dwindling research funding, an estranged wife, mother in a nursing home and loyal dog passing away. It seems Dr. Surtree's entire life has been devoted to controlled deductive reasoning with methodical outcomes, and he has hit a wall. Grinnell Morris is an excellent actor in this role, especially in such scenes where he convincingly says a sweet goodbye to his dying dog. He must venture into the unknown to find solutions. With the aid of his new formula and a little help from his friends (a minister, a homeless schizophrenic, and an East Indian doctor) he succeeds in finding a humanitarian medical cure for society. The characters expand on these ideas with heart-felt revelations, delivered by strong actors. I admit to tearing up on several occasions. "When you are free, I am free; we can't escape the effect we have on each other in the larger societal consciousness."

Very short review on this one. The story starts out okay with an interesting concept (being able to visibly see odors), but then devolves into absurdist directing and not-so-special "special effects" that have no sensible or reasonable basis. What starts out as science fiction quickly become science slop. Oddly, this happens at the very same time the theretofore reasonable script suddenly explodes in a blast of profanity. It makes one wonder if they completely changed directors and writers 20 minutes into the work... and decided to throw decent writing, reason, acting and good directing out the window in favor of shock schlock. What began as a reasonable premise becomes unbearably ridiculous-- at which point I decided to waste no more of my time than already spent on this spud.

This is a sci-fi based film that moves quickly into social commentary. The main character, Jack Sutree, is a research scientist studying the potential to use light to see olfactory data, namely scent. After an all-night work session he accidentally gives himself the ability to see smells. Soon after, he's begins to see people's souls, or the essence of their humanity. How he deals with this ability frames the film with his actions motivated by his response to events going on in his personal life. A pet's death, a pending divorce, a chance encounter with a damaged, but talente$d, homeless musician and a regent in his department who shills for Big Pharma all affect Jack as navigates the good and bad aspects of this ability to see beyond what everyone else can observe. This is an earnest movie. The tone is set right away as we see Jack dealing with having his beloved dog euthanized. He decides he wants his research to be used for the greater good, not great profits. The writing moves us along briskly, and the authentic Los Angeles locations are a fresh breeze. I thought the cast was put together nicely, especially Rob Locke as Stuart Holloway, Jack's mother's pastor. There is a great scene where he describes an onion in metaphysical terms. All in all a worthwhile movie — there's much to like here.

Sure it has a lot of the flaws you expect from this type of low budget film. The dialogue makes you wince a few times as the writer was going for clever and it just sounded clunky coming out of the mouths of the actors. But the acting was fairly solid (with a few notable exceptions, but not where it counts). The cinematography was quite good, and even the "special effects" weren't too distracting. The editing was magnificent, and in many cases that's the key difference between good and bad in films. You don't notice it unless it's done poorly, and in this case, it was pretty much seamless.

Despite is flaws, there was something about the story, and the developmental arc of the characters, that kept me fascinated. I watched it more like I was watching an art project than a movie, and I was able to really appreciate what they were trying to do.

I watch a lot of indie films, and some are definitely horrific (although many of them have some merit buried in there somewhere. This one was definitely worth a watch. Someone had a pretty clever idea, developed it, and managed to work in some thought-provoking philosophy along the way.

Sorry to say, this is not a good film. Not the acting, the script, the dialogue, the pace.. really, it's hard to find anything good to say about it. Even if the premise had a chance at all, the way it's portrayed completely ruins it. So - two thumbs down from me.