After Alice

I really liked this movie. If other people want to give it an average around 5.0/10 that's their choice. I would give it higher. Sutherland's performance as a private eye is totally awesome. The story is amazing, human, exciting, intelligent. The dialogue is good. The story might not be perfect but anyway - the mood of the movie is good enough to compensate for that. Moreover, the ending is incredibly cool and their the jig-saw puzzle really comes back to together. So anyway I liked it. I also thought the female lead actress performed very well. I'm not a big fan of detective movies but this one was really good, also because it doesn't give a damn about conventions of the supernatural.

This is an oddly interesting film. Ostensibly it is about a detective who develops psychic powers that aid in the tracking down of the serial killer, Jabberwocky. A consideration of After Alice is not so seemingly, straight forward.

The plot itself is straight out Barnaby Jones. I had suspicions as to Jabberwocky's identity very early on and with all due respect to writer Jeff Miller, the final twist is something of a cliche. It's daytime television stuff and I sort of expected more from a Hollywood movie with a Hollywood budget.

Then there is the Alice in Wonderland motif. Jabberwocky and Alice in Wonderland are entirely separate works by Lewis Carol. The Queen of Hearts doesn't really connect with the Jabberwocky. One is a poem and the other a children's story. The Queen playing card turns up after each murder and the movie is littered with Lewis Carol inspired references but, and again, none of them really serve the narrative in any way at all.

Sutherland, an accomplished actor, made a single movie in 1999, this one. In 2000 he made four. His was a serviceable performance but I had hoped for more passion or commitment from him considering that this was the project for him at the time.

And then there is the psychic aspect. A fall triggers the awakening of psychic powers within Sutherland's character Mickey Hayden and suddenly there are credible experts in the field everywhere! They add an element of interest, as does the entire business of the psychic, but I can't help but think that good old Barnaby could have arrived at a conclusion without the hocus-pocus.

The psychic artifice does though provide an avenue for a romantic interest in the form of Polly Walker's character Dr Vera Swan but it is a relationship that doesn't go anywhere even though Sutherland is recovering from a broken marriage, is vulnerable and available.

I have no regrets in finding the 100 minutes to watch the movie but I won't be expending any energy finding space on the shelf for the DVD.

People watch movies for a variety of different reasons. This movie didn't have the big budget, there's no special effects, no car chases and there's no explosions. Actually reality doesn't have much of these either. At least not in my life.

This is a very real movie about very real people, none of them perfect in any way but together they are put into a situation where they learn to explore and accept what is different and that in turn makes order out of chaos. I am not prepared to limit the possibility of parapsychology, since I'm neither an expert nor use the full extent of my own brain.

So watch this movie for the characters. It is brim-full of a whole cast of wonderful quirky folk.

Within the first three minutes Kiefer Sutherland enacts Detective Michael Hayden's life superbly and he keeps developing the character throughout the movie. Excellent acting, very believable.

Henry Czerny could not have been cast better and the rapport between his 'Harvey' and Kiefer's 'Mickey' enhances the oppositeness of their characters.

I thoroughly enjoyed the cranky landlady, 'Mrs Ramsay', I'm sure she and my mother-in-law are good friends!!!

There's a host more of these wonderful characters but space is limited here so watch the movie and enjoy them.

Trash. The script: trash. The cinematography: trash. The acting: 90% trash. The plot: trash. I did not enjoy the movie. I figured it out pretty quickly. Most characters were poorly acted; Kiefer Sutherland was not too bad. The writing was absolutely horrible. Not worth the time it took to watch. I'm sorry if I offended anyone who worked on this picture, but that is merely my opinion.

I don't watch PSI factor or any other tv science fiction series because they are either too badly written or over the top and really gross you out. But I do enjoy "psychic" movies. Kiefer Sutherland's performance was top-notch. He actually raised the calibre of the material with his excellent delivery of occasionally awkward or mundane lines. His professionalism is admirable. He refused to give a bad performance. The other psychic, Harvey, was a hoot and equally well played.I agree with Len Butz that this is a subtle movie and I thank him for his insight re Alice In Wonderland. I liked this movie very much. I would recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys watching fine performances, where an actor is given rough materials and actually improves the work by virtue of his own presence in the movie. He is doing an equally incredible job in his tv series 24, and certainly deserved his Golden Globe. If you don't go in expecting an Elm Street slasher, you will enjoy this movie.