Rating: 3/5
Hooptober X | 24/34 | Moorhead & Benson
Two paramedics, Steve (Anthony Mackie) and Dennis (Jamie Dornan) keep arriving at bizarre deaths — stab wounds but no blade, burn victims but no fire. At each scene, they find a drug called Synchronic.
When Dennis’s daughter, Brianna, disappears after taking Synchronic, Steve investigates and studies the drug to understand what happened to Brianna and the others.
Steve learns that the drug targets the pineal gland, making you experience time as it is — the whole record, not just the needle in the groove. More accurately, it jumps you back in time.
With a soft pineal gland, like someone younger than an adult, you experience different times. Steve happens to have a fatal brain tumor that makes his pineal gland softer than average.
You see where this is going.
While it rests on an astounding number of coincidences — all while the characters talk about randomness, chance, and luck — and half-baked explanations for what Synchronic does, the experience is still pretty fun.
The discussions of life and death, while not profound, ground the story and express where the storytellers cared the most.
The ending, however, is nonsense.
Stray Thoughts
- I appreciate the hostile past the movie presents, especially for our Black lead. Time travel would suck for the majority of people.
- I like seeing Anthony Mackey in a non-Marvel project! He isn’t amazing, but he commits, and it helps this movie a lot.
- Acting like Jamie Dornan is ugly is the least believable part of this movie. His American accent is shit, just let him be Irish.