Review of Flatliners (1990) by Andrew G — 28 Jul 2008

"Today is a good day to die," is the opening line of this excellent thriller. The idea is very weird but completely original. It tells the story of some young medical students who start to experiment with near-death experienecs to, well, experience.

This of course means dying and then being brought back after some amount of time. But after they go under and come back, their pasts sins that they saw during their near death start to haunt them in their everyday lives.

Its a very spirtiual story line, but thank God it isn't religious. I think if it was religious it would be too over complicated and some people may look at it differently for what it really is, some darn good entertainment.

The most intresting character story is Keifer Sutherland's. He has the more tormented experience as his sin is worse than then everybody else's. I won't say what it is because it gives away the mystery to his story.

Julia Roberts story line is probably the next most intresting as it is a more personal one than any of the others. Kevin Bacon's storyline is not incredibly intresting but it is a good story line to drive the plot, as he is the one who discovers what you have to do to be rid of these sins.

The only other person out of the five medical students that goes under is William Baldwin. I think his storyline was taken to seriously and should have been used for laughs as it is ont very serious at all and doesn't exactly cause him serious personal trauma like other characters.

But you do get some comic relief from all the tense going ons from Oliver Platt, who is the only one who doesn't go under. This is the best Joel Schumacher film I have seen (Though I am yet to see The Lost Boys).

Wether that is nescesarily saying much, you be the judge, but I think in some cases he is an underrated director. Yes, he murdered the Batman series with Batman and Robin (but without that, we wouldn't have the Chris Nolan ones), but I really liked Batman Forever beacuse you could see what he was trying to do and he pulle dit off and made a nice change from the Tim Burton movies.

Here he shows his true potential using great use of the spiritual side of the story by using very fixed eerie mostly blue lights for most of the surroundings. The scenes that stand out are really the scenes I which they go under.

They are all different for all the characters whihc adds a personal element. Plus, it really makes you think, what does happen when you go through an experience like that. This adds more curiosty to the film and does grab your attention.

The cast are extremely likeable and make you care about these characters, they all bring something to the plate as it were. But what I would have liked to know was what really got these people intrested in doing this.

It would have helped if abit more depth into the origins of the story. It does seem to dive straight into it, which in some films is good but this one needed something at the beginning to give reason for what you're about to see, but it ends up not really being looked at.

But everything else about the film is great, and I really do recommend this, just don't og getting any ideas from it!