Blu-Ray Review – Self/Less (2015)

Tarsem Singh is one of the greatest visual filmmakers working in cinema today, just look at films like The Cell and The Fall. I haven’t seen his last film Mirror, Mirror but his mythological action film Immortals somewhat lived up to its promise of being “Fight Club meets Caravaggio” as least in visual . His latest Self/Less is easily his most visually uninteresting film and lacks his distinctive touch that recalls the work of Terry Gilliam and Guillermo Del Toro.

To start things off the fact the screenwriters David and Alex Paster haven’t been sued for plagiarism is kind of unbelievable. The entire premiere is basically an uncredited rewrite of John Frankenheimer‘s 1966 masterpiece Seconds; which was recently released on Blu-Ray in the UK. Like Seconds it’s about a middle age man played by Ben Kingsley whose health isn’t getting any better decides to undertake a radical new procedure called “shredding” and becomes basically Ryan Reynolds.

The main difference is it’s an action film and lacks the fisheye lens drenched psychedelic photography of Frankenheimer’s film. They changed some minor plot points to probably get away with ripping off Seconds but whole scenes recall it especially the procedure scene and when he visits the home of the person whose body he has inhabited. The ending also lacks the downbeat ending which seemed like a total cop-out to please the studio, in Seconds he is killed off by the corporation who does the procedure.

Despite the overt plagiarism of Seconds it’s a fun ride of a film but it would probably have worked better if they just got the rights to Seconds and remade it.  Seconds it’s the kind of film in theory that could be remade and be well done but probably not better. Reynolds seems to be having a run of more interesting roles with this andMatthew Goode is the highlight who brings some much-needed sinister threat as Professor Albright who does the procedure. The disc is pretty barebones with only some short fluffy featurettes which add very little to the proceedings.