Red Lights

Indian Express Rating: ***1/2

FOR a movie about the mind and ESP,Red Lights does a lot of talking — only some of it does it good. For,how many ways are there to say “weigh belief against rationality”. Dr Margaret Matheson (Weaver),Simon Silver (de Niro),Tom Buckley (Murphy) and Sally (Olsen) find words for it from “science vs pseudo-science” and “metaphysics vs paranormal” to even “what-is-there-to-believe in vs do-you-believe-in-anything”.

Still,everytime they are experiencing the power of any of the above,the film is at its most taut. Spanish director Rodrigo Cortes handles the tension well in the form of the intense,off-kilter Murphy at the centre of the story,the diabolic de Niro a malignant presence over it,and the mentally strong but emotionally fragile Weaver drawing the two together.

Red Lights brings that sense of creeping paranormality without resorting to any standard horrors. In fact,in trying to be true to how such events would play out in real life,it not just has TV shows that look and sound genuine but even a scientific experiment that surprisingly fits the bill. The event is the return of Silver,the enigmatic blind ESP practitioner who has emerged from retirement after 20 years. At his last show before he disappeared from public view,a journalist who dared question the authenticity of his powers had mysteriously collapsed and died.

Matheson is the leading debunker of “charlatans” such as Silver. While her regular job is as a psychology university professor,she is called upon by families having trouble with “paranormal” activity. In her 30 years of work,she tells her students,she has yet to see a miracle.

Buckley is a bright young physicist who has attached himself to Matheson as her assistant in her ventures. Increasingly,as the return of Silver comes to occupy public imagination,Buckley realises that Matheson — who has just recently revealed a faith healer to be a fraud — is reluctant to take on Silver.

There is a history to it,which viewers would be better off discovering for themselves. For,what binds Matheson to Silver is not the words she utters but how she says and feels them.

Every time we encounter Silver,he and his coldly efficient agent played by Joely Richardson appear to be growing in their capacity for menace. They seem to have eyes,ears and noses everywhere and are not afraid to use the same to take on opponents. One chilling scene involves Silver looking apparently straight up to where Buckley is sitting hiding inside a theatre. As the lights blow out around them,he seems to be shining forth from inside a black hole,a sardonic smile spreading across his lips.

It’s when a goon steps in to do what Silver accomplishes with just a glint on his dark glasses that we know we are not headed for as enigmatic a finish as the rest of Red Lights promises. On the other hand,in a flourishy monologue,the film ends up asking us to suspend the very disbelief it has been urging us so far to humour.

shalini.langer@expressindia.com