K-PAX Reviews
by Tim Wick
OK, what I'm about to write contains what could be considered major
spoilers. I don't consider them to be so, but if you are the type of person
who prefers to see a film without any pre-knowledge, you should come back
and read this review after you've seen the film.
K-PAX is ambiguous from beginning to end. The central question of the
film is weather or not Prot (played by Kevin Spacey) is really from the
planet K-PAX as he claims. The alternative is that he's a delusional
psychotic.
I made the mistake of spending the entire film trying to figure out what the
answer to that question was. In fact, the answer was never important and
once I realized that I was able to re-evaluate and better appreciate the
rest of the film.
The movie, much like Bandits does not really have much original to say to
us. It tells us the power to heal lies inside ourselves even if it
sometimes requires outside help to be brought to the surface. It tells us
that family is important and something to be cherished because once we have
lost that precious gift we will never truly get it back. It tells us that
sometimes taking things at face value is OK.
Sure, we've seen all of this before in other movies. We've seen the gentle
crazy guy who probably (but not positively) is not who he claims and who has
far more to teach his shrink than his shrink has to teach him.
What makes K-PAX more than a mediocre rehash of the same movie we've seen
before is Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges. Spacey has two Oscars and Bridges
deserves a few. Both are fine actors and bring so much depth to the roles
that they manage to raise the material to a higher level and make it more
effective than it would have otherwise been.
Bridges, as Spacey's psychiatrist, is a man who is out of touch with
everything. He can't really even reach his patients any longer. Later in
the film, he is chastised for getting "too close" to Spacey's character. In
fact, his distance from his patients, his family and himself has been a
problem for years. Spacey's Prot cannot be viewed from a distance and by
becoming engaged with Prot, Bridges must become engaged with himself.
What I really did appreciate about this film was the way the central
question of Prot's "sanity" was addressed. We saw rock solid indications
that he was in fact telling the truth and just as convincing proof that he
was a man driven out of his mind by a tragic event. Perhaps, the movie
tells us, he was both. We will never know as the answer remains elusive
even as the credits roll. Such a decision is dangerous as it has the
possibility of making the audience turn on you. For me, it was the best
possible ending of the film.
Kevin Spacey is one of those actors I will make time to watch. He is
electrifying on screen and can elevate a bad movie to a good one just by
virtue of his ability to imbue characters with vitality. Jeff Bridges is on
the same level. Together, they have created a film where the whole is much
better than the sum of it's parts.
Four Beakers.
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