THE BULLET AND THE BOTTOM LINE - When a man appears in New York's Grand Central Station claiming that a beam of light and not the 8:23 from Poughkeepsie dropped him there, the new & improved NYPD officers fresh from sensitivity training decide perhaps a ride in a nice warm police van wearing a set of comfy handcuffs is the best place for him. It will then fall onto the shoulders of both a caring doctor and the audience to decide if either he is a few bananas short of a bunch or maybe NASA should stop putting "When in the Milky way, Visit Earth!" notes on space probes. However, the note on this film will have to be walk don't run.. to the video store unless one is a serious Spacey junkie. Not an out-and-out failure that will call to mind how much the sitter is costing, it could be enjoyed as a second or third choice. For a much more satisfying film involving possibly disturbed guys, their therapists and references to soap bubbles check out DONNIE DARKO.
Whether or not one appreciates Kevin Spacey will have a lot to do with whether or not one appreciates the movie surrounding him of K-PAX. Ultimately, this is a film that is so dependant upon the portrayal of its protagonist that the audience's faith in him will be their path through the prickly parts of the story. Just don't expect a tour-de-force performance along the lines of THE USUAL SUSPECTS' for K-PAX delivers unto Spacey what is Spacey's - the smooth, flip, cool-as-a-cucumber guy who tosses off snarky bon mots with a bemused expression. As the supposed E.T. prot (rhymes with wrote and spelled with small "p"), he is channeling less the likes of Verbal Kent than Jack Vincennes (who seemed to be channeling Dean Martin) and Lester Burnham after he found his balls. In essence, Spacey is simply playing his usual persona. It's really hard to even refer to the character as prot rather than Spacey-as-prot. If it wasn't for the plot and production design, it would almost deserve the label of documentary.
Not wanting to depress the audience by showing poor Spacey-as-prot in some Spartan, antiseptic place of wire-mesh protected windows and puke green tile floors, the movie-ish named Manhattan Psychiatric Institute (located in Queens apparently) is filled with warm light and odd-but-not-repulsive inmates. Jeff Bridges' Dr. Mark Powell has a very stylish pseudo-modern office. Perhaps points should be awarded for the fact that this New York head shrinker is not overtly Jewish, but they would be lost when balanced against the Sassy Black Receptionist .The equipment is all the latest stuff. None of the patients are apparently suffering from any sexual dysfunctions or healthy urges for that matter - MPI is apparently a unisex institution. When a party is thrown, the institute even sees fit to buy them expensive favors. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST this is not.
One of the more annoyingly cloy things about K-PAX is its refusal to pick a side when it comes to whether or not Spacey-as-prot is of this world or not. In order to make the Jeff Bridges character a fuller person and not just the rote psychologist acting as surrogate for the audience to ask testing questions through, he is given a back story. In so doing, the whimsical Bill Forsyth elements of is-he-or-isn't-he-Starman are bound to the standard melodramatic device of the searcher finding himself. This is the Scylla and Charybdis the film tries to steer between and eventually is torn apart by the contradictory evidence. Sadly, had the filmmakers trusted the strength of Bridges' search to find the reality behind the myth they had all the elements to deliver a very effective and possibly powerful conclusion. But it would have meant sacrificing the possibility that Spacey-as-prot was the magical being he claims to be.
Whether or not one appreciates Kevin Spacey will have a lot to do with whether or not one appreciates the movie surrounding him of K-PAX. Ultimately, this is a film that is so dependant upon the portrayal of its protagonist that the audience's faith in him will be their path through the prickly parts of the story. Just don't expect a tour-de-force performance along the lines of THE USUAL SUSPECTS' for K-PAX delivers unto Spacey what is Spacey's - the smooth, flip, cool-as-a-cucumber guy who tosses off snarky bon mots with a bemused expression. As the supposed E.T. prot (rhymes with wrote and spelled with small "p"), he is channeling less the likes of Verbal Kent than Jack Vincennes (who seemed to be channeling Dean Martin) and Lester Burnham after he found his balls. In essence, Spacey is simply playing his usual persona. It's really hard to even refer to the character as prot rather than Spacey-as-prot. If it wasn't for the plot and production design, it would almost deserve the label of documentary.
Not wanting to depress the audience by showing poor Spacey-as-prot in some Spartan, antiseptic place of wire-mesh protected windows and puke green tile floors, the movie-ish named Manhattan Psychiatric Institute (located in Queens apparently) is filled with warm light and odd-but-not-repulsive inmates. Jeff Bridges' Dr. Mark Powell has a very stylish pseudo-modern office. Perhaps points should be awarded for the fact that this New York head shrinker is not overtly Jewish, but they would be lost when balanced against the Sassy Black Receptionist .The equipment is all the latest stuff. None of the patients are apparently suffering from any sexual dysfunctions or healthy urges for that matter - MPI is apparently a unisex institution. When a party is thrown, the institute even sees fit to buy them expensive favors. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST this is not.
One of the more annoyingly cloy things about K-PAX is its refusal to pick a side when it comes to whether or not Spacey-as-prot is of this world or not. In order to make the Jeff Bridges character a fuller person and not just the rote psychologist acting as surrogate for the audience to ask testing questions through, he is given a back story. In so doing, the whimsical Bill Forsyth elements of is-he-or-isn't-he-Starman are bound to the standard melodramatic device of the searcher finding himself. This is the Scylla and Charybdis the film tries to steer between and eventually is torn apart by the contradictory evidence. Sadly, had the filmmakers trusted the strength of Bridges' search to find the reality behind the myth they had all the elements to deliver a very effective and possibly powerful conclusion. But it would have meant sacrificing the possibility that Spacey-as-prot was the magical being he claims to be.