Review of Red Lights (2012) by Filipeneto — 30 May 2021

Mediumship and paranormal powers are a fascinating topic, and I think there is hardly a single person who escapes the fascination of this matter. You either believe it or you don't believe it, or you keep an open attitude about it, but everyone has an opinion. In this case, the film is about a duo of scientists, Margaret Matheson and Tom Buckley, who unmasks false mediums and mentalists. When the famous Simon Silver decides to end an exile of many years and give a show, they are divided: Tom is determined to expose him as a fraud, but Margaret warns him that he is particularly dangerous.

The cast is headed by three names: Sigourney Weaver, Cillian Murphy and Robert De Niro. However, Rodrigo Cortés' direction and writing could not be worse and waste all the potential that the film could have. I don't know why Weaver's character dies so early in the film, maybe the actress had some schedule conflict and couldn't continue filming, but the fact is that it would have been better to be Weaver to take the lead and move the film forward, by instead of Murphy, who had neither charisma nor a capable character to do so. With the death of Margaret, Weaver's character, the film loses its balance and turns into a bitter manhunt, in which Murphy's character will stubbornly pursue the medium of De Niro until the last consequences. The film hurries, runs over wildly, lacks elegance and loses its rhythm. The ending is a kind of duel at sunset between the two, and it couldn't be more cliché and more uninteresting than it turned out to be.

Sigourney Weaver disappears too soon, but everything she does is done very well and gives us a very competent job. Robert De Niro is pleasantly sinister and intense in his role, and Toby Jones has also been fine whenever the film required his presence. It is really Cillian Murphy who clashes, in a histrionic, exaggerated and disappointing performance.

Technically, the film is very good and looks expensive. Cinematography works very well, with De Niro's scenes so bleak that we almost barely see the actor's face, unrecognizable with his glasses, hairstyle and makeup. The visual, special and sound effects are very good, they are expensive, and they look spectacular. The scenes in the laboratory, with the psychic tests, also seemed very good, and the videos are realistic enough, with that old-fashioned look.