FLATLINERS. 1990. DIRECTED BY JOEL SCHUMACHER. STARRING KIEFER SUTHERLAND, JULIA ROBERTS, KEVIN BACON, WILLIAM BALDWIN AND OLIVER PLATT. REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
This horror film is an enjoyable watch, but it ain't half daft. I'd heard so much over the years about how good it was, then I watch it for myself and find out that it's a load of wishy-washy old hokum. Fun hokum, but hokum nonetheless.
The five leads are American medical students who have gotten way, way too big for their boots. They think they can play God by each undergoing a controlled death for several minutes, then being resuscitated by their smarty-pants colleagues. If during the time they are 'dead' they experience some kind of an 'afterlife,' then that proves definitively that there is life after death.
Cue instant fame and fortune for the five and a place in the medical history books. Sigh. No good ever came from trying to out-God God. Someone really should have told this to these uppity morons with a grossly inflated sense of their own importance and intelligence. Just because they're the smartest students in the class doesn't mean they can fly in the face of Death and come out the other end unscathed...
They each experience different 'afterlife' scenarios while they are under. They emerge shocked and shaken, having each seen things from their past that they would have much preferred to forget. It's when these shameful secrets start to plague them during their waking hours that they realise they've opened up a can of worms that might have been better left untouched...
That's when the film really started to go downhill for me. Kevin Bacon's and Julia Roberts's stories are mushy in the extreme, while Billy Baldwin's is silly and Kiefer Sutherland's just plain nasty. Surely someone could have come up with stronger, better-defined stories with more satisfying resolutions? Incidentally, Oliver Platt, arguably the least famous of the five, doesn't get a story at all, or a chance to go 'under,' which seems unfair.
The ending is pure daft too. Out of the five, I think only Kiefer Sutherland's and Julia Roberts's performances would be worth remembering. That's probably mainly because they're both utterly ravishing though, haha. His sneery mouth and her fabulous hair, teeth and wide, wide smile...! Fantastic stuff. She has absolutely no boobs in it, but she's more memorable for other things. She's really all about the teeth and hair, I always think.
Okay, so I wasn't very complimentary about this film but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have its good moments, and the college building and the Fall scenery are both gorgeous to look at. It's worth checking out at least once anyway, if only for its all-star cast and iconic movie status. Enjoy...
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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