Sunday, October 12, 2008

PATHOLOGY (2008)

Cast: Milo Ventimiglia, Alyssa Milano, Michael Weston, Lauren Lee Smith, Johnny Whitworth, John De Lancie, Larry Drake,

Directed By: Marc Schoelermann
Written By: Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor
Cinematography By: Ekkehart Pollack
Editor: Todd E. Miller


This review is going to be spoiler heavy so if you want to go into this movie blind definitely skip.

This is obviously inspired at least partially by “Flatliners” with a group of medical students banding together to forma little group. To test the limits of there expertise.

The killers are just a bunch of nihilistic trust funders who think they are god/vigilantes who pass the time having sex and smoking crack. It doesn’t seem to take long or too much to seduce the protagonist into this group of killers. Which doesn’t exactly make it easy to feel anything for any character.

This was written by the writers of crank and you can tell with it’s adrenaline rush seeking characters and nihilistic mood. Which goes with the visuals which tend to be dark and murky. It still has the requisite mtv flash cuts but as the film goes things are revealed so quickly there is virtually no mystery and you are left with wondering where this film is going with it’s Marilyn Manson themed darkness and it’s seven inspired themes and content. The film seems like it wants to be more then it is but it just comes off as a knock off a trashy b-movie. It all boils down to a serial killer who just influences others to do the same but make it see ok because there are always reasons where it is ok to kill like the dregs of society or you can look at it like a love story between two men where the Violence is the sex that they get off of they share the same girl and are always exchanging looks and around each other shirtless

It’s shameful in a movie full of sex and some nudity that Alyssa Milano is in a sex scene but doesn’t get naked and only uses her cleavage to maximum quality in only one scene. Plus her character just seems to be there as the innocent girlfriend who struck me as very annoying because the only things she seems to know or care about is her boyfriend and law school her character could have been peppered with a little more of a personality.

No I know I have done a lot of complaining for a film I passed I’ll admit it doesn’t deserve the grade I gave it but I was entertained for the most part so much so that I actually had to think about this film where is where I came up with what’s wrong with it but I realize this is check your brain at the door disguised as thinking man thriller this would have been deemed original and thought provoking in the 90’s but now we have been there and done that so it doesn’t impress. Though I would have loved to see what could have been done with a bigger budget and not being filmed in Canada.

You can tell look at the locations and actors and know this was a candian production through and through

I will give the film a couple of marks for the scene near the end where he tries to handle his problem I admit I didn’t see it coming though it would have pissed me off if he got away scot free without having to suffer.

I knew the character of the other student who worships milo’s character for some reason would have to be eventually relevant other then for just to be the punching bag or to represent the good side of doctors the moral upright

The ending is quite a cruel but justified show

I would rent it if there is nothing else out there or you just want a trashy film that doesn’t require too much thinking because it will explain it all to you after it happens anyway

Grade: C+

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