[yasr_overall_rating]
A reclusive American composer with an online following has a tentative romance with a beautiful social worker. This offers a glimmer of hope but his mind fractures as the voices in his head grow louder and more destructive.
“Enter the Dangerous Mind” starts out with a promising concept but as the movie progresses, it loses its momentum and quickly unravels into a disjointed and muddled affair. When you’re dealing with schizophrenia, the filmmakers have a lot of leeway with their story as they are able to create characters and scenarios that while we may see them visually onscreen, the character suffering from said illness, may not and vice versa so there is a lot of room to cheat the audience. Unfortunately, there are so many unsubtle hints throughout the movie that you can pretty much see what’s coming before the characters can and that’s a shame as this could have been a very compelling tale.
We are introduced to Jim Whitman (Jake Hoffman), a very reclusive young man who locks himself away in his apartment when he’s not helping customers at their locations with their wi-fi and PC issues. His brother Jake (Thomas Dekker) is constantly around him, always telling him what to do and say when he is around other people as he lacks any sort of social skills. When he meets Wendy (Nikki Reed), a social worker, try as he may, he just cannot work up the courage to ask her out so he hands over all control of his life to Jake and lets him guide him but things quickly spiral out of control when Jake gets inside of his head, continually lying to him until Jim doesn’t know the difference between reality and imagination.
While the film has a promising start, it never really gains traction, awkwardly chugging along until there is no steam left. With an all-star cast including Nikki Reid, Scott Bakula and a sorely underused Jason Priestley, the overall mood of the film always stays the same: bleak. No one ever seems to have a moment of levity or buoyancy, all the characters are so intense and tormented, that it begins to suck the life out of you until the film tries to one-up you with a final twist anybody with half a brain could see coming a mile away. Only recommended for fans of the aforementioned cast.
Available on Blu-ray and DVD now
