Peter A. Quinn
Posts: 7320
Joined: 11/2/2006
From: Deep, deep, DEEP undercover!
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There seems to be two David Cronenbergs making movies, these days, Cronenberg the auteur(Videodrome, Dead Ringers, Crash, eXistenZ), and the Cronenberg who deals in more mainstream, but still grisly efforts(The Fly, A History of Violence). This adaptation of Stephen King's bestseller The Dead Zone, definitely falls into the latter. The story(adapted here by The Lost Boys and Lethal Weapon 2 scribe Jeffrey Boam)concerns a schoolteacher implausably named John Smith(Christopher Walken), returning home after a date with fellow teacher Sarah(Brooke Adams), gets into a major fender-bender with an overturned semi-trailer. He wakes from his coma a few years later to find his girlfriend has married another man, and he now, through the power of touch, can see a person's future, or the past. He is befriended by psychiatrist Sam Weizak(the excellent Herbert Lom), and is enlisted for his help by local sheriff Bannerman(Tom Skerritt)to find a rampant serial killer. Also in the story is an aspiring, corrupt politician (Martin Sheen) who becomes Johnny's obsession after glimpsing a future with Sheen as President. This is Cronenberg at his most restrained. The human relatonships are handled with great subtlety an pathos, and the violence is tastefully reigned in without the sacrifice of suspense. Walken, too, is not as "eccentric" as his later performances, which does the film a great favour in letting us in on Johnny's private pain. A solid thriller from an unlikely source, and quite poignant, in it's own way.
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This city is afraid of me. I have seen it's true face.
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