Mindsight

Psychological drama

Echelon Studios

R1 DVD

Director Billy S Cox has come up with a first class revenge film with some nasty twists. He shows us how a perfectly normal man can be driven to abnormal lengths in his quest for revenge. In the end, does it make him a better man or is he as bad as the people he wants revenge on?

Tom and Gina lose their son to a drunken teenage driver. The kid was driving from a college frat party to pick up some condoms. While Tom can handle his son’s death in his usual passive style, Gina falls apart. She wants someone to lash out at and in her irrationality she blames Tom – “you didn’t protect our son”. She accuses him of doing nothing about the teenager and withdraws from him into her tormented mind.

They attend the teenager’s trial and Tom has a strange moment when he dreams he has a gun and is shooting the kid. In his dream a sheriff’s officer and Gina are also killed in the crossfire. Tom is not the type to want revenge that seriously but Gina continues to pressure him to do something – what exactly she can’t say – and to question his love for her and their son.

Tom consults a friend, Brian, who is a minister. Tom was once a good Christian but has gradually drifted away from religion. Brian can offer nothing but the usual platitudes about “God’s plan” and so on, but he does give Tom one piece of information. Tom’s strange dream may be an example of Mindsight, a condition where the brain of someone under stress constructs a scenario that the dreamer may be wishing for. Mindsight, however, will also show the consequences of that scenario. “The bad things that we want to happen only end up making things worse for us”. There are always consequences.

Tom is both repelled by the idea of killing the teenager but at the same time under Gina’s increasingly crazed pressure the idea starts to appeal to him. He is losing his wife and he has lost his child – what else is there to lose? From here we are not sure if Tom is doing what we see or if it is another episode of Mindsight. He visits a couple of gangsters who give him details of a bank to hold up. The holdup goes smoothly and he sends the money to Gina, who is now a pill popping alcoholic – in fact she is now worse than the teenage driver she wants revenge on.

Tom has gone to no trouble to hide his identity from the bank’s security cameras so he is soon picked up and sentenced to prison. Now he is the same prison as the teenager, and can carry out his revenge plan He kills the kid, but not before the kid asks him “Have you ever done something stupid for a woman?”. Yes, that’s exactly what Tom is now doing for Gina. Tom will now get life for the murder. Are the consequences worth it? Fortunately it turns out to be just another episode of Mindsight.

Tom now evaluates the possibilities and when the teenager is let out of prison after only six years Tom is waiting for him with a gun. Is he going through another episode of Mindsight or is he now back in reality?

The story seesaws between reality and Mindsight and it is hard to tell which one we are seeing. Tom is aware of the consequences through his Mindsight but Gina is so consumed by the idea of driving Tom to take revenge she will not consider the outcomes. Religion is no help or comfort to Tom. “Next time you pray ask God to forgive me. He stopped listening to me a long time ago.”

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