Review of Red Lights

'Red Lights' is a 2012 Spanish-American thriller film written and directed by Rodrigo Cortes. It stars Sigourney Weaver, Robert De Niro and Cillian Murphy. In the film, a psychologist and paranormal investigaator, played by Weaver, and her physicist assistant, played by Murphy, investigate fraudulent psychics. The biggest challenge of all being Simon Silver (De Niro) returning after thirty years away the stage. Silver takes the pair to dark places and makes them question their logical beliefs. Does he really of psychic abilities?

As soon as I saw who the cast was I decided I had to see this film, De Niro is always amazing, the same with Weaver and I have recently became a fan of Cillian Murphy after his roles in Christopher Nolan's Batman films and in 'In Time'. I'll begin with the story, it is really well planned out, I did A-Level psychology so the whole film felt like a flash back to the documentaries I used to watch in class. The way the two (Weaver and Murphy) break down a persons act to determine whether or not it is real is how it is done in real life. A lot of the techniques we see int he film are based off actually scientific studies into this area. Anyone who knows this topic well will notice that Silver's fame mirrors that of Uri Geller's, who became famous back in the 70's for apparently being able to read minds and bend spoons with his mind (though many studies have proved him to be a fake). The cast is also really good, De Niro portrayed a different character to anything I have ever seen him do, he creates a character that really fills the space, he intimidates, almost creeps us out in some scenes, a fine piece of acting. Sigourney Weaver portrays a tired, grief filled woman who is probably too smart for her own good, she is always filled with so much confidence when she is working, but when you get down to her personal life, we see that she is riddled with grief and is battling with her beliefs, with her fear of Silver. It was interesting to see Cillian Murphy in a more emotionally involved film, in 'Batman Begins' and 'In Time', he seems emotionless throughout, both of his roles in those films are intelligent and confident, whereas in this film, we see him express his emotions, he gets stressed, scared, sad, for once we see him properly as an actor. His performance was good, however I think a few times he over did it. Elizabeth Olsen was also int he film, she was kind of a fifth wheel, there was no real need for her to be there.

My main complaints about this film are the pacing, a lot of the time the film feels like it's dragging, we have scenes of interest, then what feels like a long, meaningless wait until the next one. A thriller should be better paced than this. Also the ending, I originally liked the ending when the big twist was revealed, but afterwards they explained the ending too much, they should have caught us by surprise, then quickly ended, we didn't need the extended monologue. I would have preferred to be left with more questions.

Apart from that it was a good film, I'd recommend it to anyone who studies psychology, in particular parapsychology. I must also state that the opening credit sequence in this film is really good, it sets the pace for a thriller (shame it didn't follow through), with a great score behind it and a dark, mysterious look about it. I'm going to give 'Red Lights' a 7/10.