Not a little green man in sight (K-Pax (DVD))

Member Name: Leolover

Product:	K-Pax (DVD)
Date:	16/10/02 (53 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Spacey is fantastic, great story

Disadvantages: cliched subplot

That'll teach me to ignore the critics. I put off seeing this film at the cinema as I read quite a few poor reviews when it first came out, but I have now seen it on DVD, and can't understand how anyone could not like it. K-PAX is a beautifully made and thought provoking film about the possibility of extra terrestrial life, that in my opinion knocks the socks of crass Hollywood sci-fi spectaculars like Independence Day and Men in Black.

*** THE PLOT

A man appears in a crowded US train station, apparently out of thin air. He goes to the aid of a mugging victim and is mistaken for the mugger by the intercepting police. He says his name is Prot, and claims to be a visitor from the planet K-PAX, in a constellation called Lira some 100 billion light years from Earth. As you might imagine, this doesn't go down too well with the local US police force, who bundle him into some handcuffs and drag him off to the nearest mental health hospital department.

Enter William (Jeff Bridges), a workaholic psychiatrist, who is given the task of analysing Prot and diagnosing his condition. He soon becomes perplexed as Prot displays detailed knowledge of solar systems and mathematical formulae that even the greatest astronomers and physicists struggle with. He can't bring himself to believe that Prot is an alien, but what other explanation is there...?

I won't spoil the plot by giving too much away, but suffice to say that all is not as it seems, and the viewer is forced to reach their own conclusions about what, or who, Prot is.


*** WHAT'S GOOD

The acting. Spacey is fantastic as Prot, often using facial expressions and 'stillness' to create a powerful, somehow 'different' persona. A faultless performance. Jeff Bridges' William is less convinving, and occasionally clumsy, but generally speaking he does quite well. There are also some excellent supporting performances from some of t
hose playing the other psychiatric 'inmates', although I felt that one or two of them were a bit cliched - the nervous obsessive compulsive, for example, and the twitchy paranoid schizophrenic.

The camera work is also delightful. Prot claims to have travelled to Earth 'on a beam of light' and the theme of light is used again and again in the film to great effect - dust motes trailing in a beam of sunlight, for example, and the reflections from a glass paperweight on the psychiatrists desk. It all added to the uncertainty and brilliance of Prot's character.

I felt that the plot (based on a novel by Gene Brewer) was generally very strong. We want to know if Prot is telling the truth, and if he is, he could leave at any time, which really adds to the dramatic tension.


*** WHAT'S BAD

The sub plot regarding William's lack of involvement with his family was another big cliche and was very clumsily handled. For example, at one point we hear about a horrendous crime involving a child, and then we cut to a shot of William gazing tenderly at his own daughter, presumably 'realising how lucky he is ' - Far too obvious and quite cringey, really.
There's also a ludicrous scene involving Prot talking to a dog - classic 'alien can talk to animals' rubbish, that in my opinion detracted from the impact of the character.

Those who like a lot of action in their movies may well be disappointed with K-PAX, as it is quite slow moving.


*** CONCLUSION

I loved it. Spacey makes the film, and I don't know if I would have enjoyed it with any other actor playing the part of Prot, but it's made me determined to buy all three K-PAX novels as soon as I get the chance. In my experience the books are always better than the film, and this film is so good that the books must be absolutely outstanding. The critics were wrong - this is a little gem of a film, and
I'm paraying for a sequel.

Summary: