Saturday night Amy and I were housesitting for a friend. We thought it’d be fun to get some pizza, rent a movie, and 
kick back with our friend’s huge flat screen TV. So we hit the redbox and picked up Push, a sci fi flick about mutant-like people who have special abilities. These people are classified by their skills. Pushers can push thoughts into other people’s minds, making them believe things that aren’t true. Movers can … well, move things with their minds. Watchers see glimpses of the future. Bleeders scream really loudly and make everything in sound reach explode. And the classifications go on.
Push centers around Nick, a second-generation mover, who isn’t actually very good at it. He gambles, throws dice, and still can’t manage to win, even though he’s supposed to be able to move the dice with his mind. Nick’s dad died 10 years before, and the last thing he said to his son was that when a girl with a flower asks for his help, he needs to help her.
Said young woman shows up in the form of a teen Dakota Fanning (who knew the girl would actually grow up to be a pretty good actress?). She plays a 13-year-old watcher, who needs Nick’s help to save her mother, who is being held by the evil Division. The only way to get her mom (also a watcher) back is by stealing a drug that Division has been testing. The same drug that is killing everyone it is tried on.
Sound conveluted? It is. Throw is extra watchers, bleeders, and pushers, and it begins to not make much sense at all.
I love those movies that make me think, that don’t make sense until the very end. Case in point, The Prestige. I love how that movie just messes with my mind. But at the end it’s wrapped up so nicely that it all makes sense. It’s unbelievable, yet every piece of it fits so perfectly together that I don’t have to spend hours wondering what piece of the puzzle I was missing.
Push has an interesting premise, but the conclusion is so underwhelming that I just walked away feeling confused.
Worse … about half way through the movie, I thought I had figured out how Nick and Dakota’s character were connected. I was so convinced that that was how it should be that when it turned out worse than my imagined ending, I was even more let down. *shaking head* Bad move on my part.
So … I won’t be watching Push again, but that’s okay.
Looking for good movies until next time. -LJ
Maybe we need to stick with tried and true sci-fi. Case in point – Frequency. Now there is a movie I can watch and rewatch.
I agree with your assessment of Push. It could have been really interesting, but for me it fell apart.
What was your imagined ending?
Kate, I thought for sure that Nick and … Dakota Fanning’s character (I can’t think of her name) were brother and sister. It made so much sense to me that his dad knew about the girl with the flower because his wife, a watcher, had told him. And the notes at the end didn’t make any sense to me. How could Nick know how things would play out if he wasn’t a watcher–but I thought if his mom was one, maybe he had some skills passed down to him. It all made such sense in my mind with them as brother and sister, and you’re right. It just fell apart at the end.
Daddio, you know I LOVE Frequency. Dennis Quaid at his best, and Jim C. too? You can’t beat it. Let’s watch it next time I’m home on vacation. K? Love ya!