Red Lights (2012) - 2.5/4

Red Lights is all about fakery and misdirection. Like the best magician, it draws your attention elsewhere while it works its ‘magic.’ In the best cases, this is enjoyable. David Copperfield makes a babe in a bikini appear out of thin air. Where’d she come from? Excellent! In the worse cases, however, you find yourself fleeced by a swift conman. Red Lights both entertains and fleeces.

The first half of the film focuses on the relationship between a professional debunker (Sigourney Weaver) and her assistant (Cilian Murphy). Episodically, they do their job, exchange philosophical discussions, and provide character background. The second half introduces a world-renowned psychic (Robert DeNiro) that no-one has ever been able to debunk. Weaver and Murphy are drawn into the surprisingly dangerous world of trying to debunk to undebunkable DeNiro.

The debunking and philosophical discussions were earnest and intriguing. I was particularly delighted with Weaver’s performance as a debunker so assured of her time-honed principles and techniques that she’s become an atheist guru. One never senses from her a lack of spirituality or depth, an emptiness or apologetic undertone so often accompanying atheist characters in popular media. Murphy’s wide-eyed discipleship is charming if a little confusing. But that’s all part of the ‘magic.’

The fleecing, here, is knowing that almost all of the debunking scenarios, principles, and even some of the philosophical discussions are taken wholesale from the life and opinions of James Randi. The faith healer with the radio transmitter is, in parts, taken word-for-word from Randi’s debunking of Peter Popoff. That’s just one instance; there are more. I know, because I spent my undergrad as a wide-eyed Randi disciple.

Even DeNiro’s character is an embellishment of Randi’s long-time nemesis, Uri Gellar, the infamous spoon-bender. He excited minds in the ‘70s with his one-trick charlatanry that bamboozled genuine scientists, faded from view, tried to make a return on Israeli TV, and ultimately confessed to being a mere magician. The conflict between Randi and Gellar is exaggerated in Red Lights, but obviously the source.

I have a problem with this liberal theft from Randi’s career because, first of all, I think Randi’s life is interesting enough to be dramatized on its own and not cannibalized by fiction. Secondly, I’m furious with the lack of imagination shown by a writer (director Rodrigo Cortes) who really should have been able to invent, rather than steal, the material for his screenplay. This may not literally be plagiarism, but it’s not acceptable from a creative mind.

The conflicts between Weaver and DeNiro, Murphy and DeNiro, and even between Weaver and Murphy over DeNiro, I found mostly plausible and engrossing. DeNiro’s character is a slippery manipulator whose main mode of communication is chewing the scenery—making DeNiro’s task a cakewalk. Often his bombastic speeches are exaggerated to a laughable extent. But the film’s best moment is his philosophical monologue to Murphy. Like any viewer would, I wondered whether DeNiro’s character was genuine or not. I was invested in the conflicts between these characters and interested in how they would be played out.

Cortes’s whole methodology, however, is to fleece the viewer with a sucker-punch conclusion that really deflates a lot of the dramatic power earned up to that point. This is the kind of conclusion that requires a flashback to all the key ‘hints’ throughout the film. The kind of conclusion that the viewer doesn’t think of, not because it’s hard to figure out, but because it’s too tiresome and stupid.

The tension between the authentic, good film that could have been and the plagiarized, sneaky confidence trick it turns out to be leaves me ambivalent toward it. The narrative flaws I could have forgiven seem less venial without the good faith of the creator. The moments of skilful drama, owed primarily to the often wasted acting talent of Weaver, DeNiro, Murphy, and Toby Jones, make Red Lights passable entertainment—just remember, you can’t win a fixed game.