Movie Review: Knowing

KNOWING.

Starring: Nicholas Cage
Directed by: Alex Proyas

“Alex Proyas’ latest flick, “Knowing”, is a good pulse-pounding thriller."


Poor John Koestler. It’s hard enough raising a precocious kid as a single dad, avoiding issues with his father for so long and then drowning himself in alcohol every night just to forget the loss of his wife. Now his life gets more complicated when a mysterious piece of paper containing only random numbers and accurately forecasting global disasters is displaying a serious warning leading to his greatest fears.

This is the premise to “Knowing”, a film which Alex Proyas directs with adequate success. Taking some of the plot twisting elements he dished out in “I, Robot” and showing brooding imagery he provided in “Dark City”, Proyas manages to mix ancient ideologies with present day visual effects into a well-paced science fiction/thriller flick.

The film brings us to present day Massachusetts, where an elementary school is celebrating its 50th year of existence. As part of the festivities, school officials dig up a time capsule containing illustrations of pupils from 1959 who were asked to draw images of what they think the future would look like.

When the drawings were given to the students, Caleb Koestler, (Chandler Canterbury) receives the most intriguing drawing – a document filled with random numbers. When his dad John (Nicholas Cage) stumbles upon the page and accidentally analyzes a couple of numbers in the computer, he learns that it accurately predicted the major global disasters in the last 50 years.

John starts to investigate and find out who drew those numbers and learns that the student, Lucinda Embry, has now passed away. He interviews Lucinda’s teacher and tries to get hold of Lucinda’s daughter Diana (Rose Byrne) but gets rejected. When the second natural disaster occurs exactly as what the document said, Diana decides to tell John everything she knows about her mother, and brings him to her house. As John examines the rooms of the abandoned dwelling, another shocking discovery leads him to believe that unless something is done, terrible things will happen.

Actor Nicholas Cage, who gained the nod of audiences for his spot in the film “Leaving Las Vegas” and cast in lead roles in action-adventure movies such as “National Treasure”, “The Rock”, “Face-Off” and “Ghost Rider”, is a good reason why people will be coming over to see this 121-minute flick. But beyond the main character he portrays, the fine directing of Proyas will sustain the interest throughout. “Knowing” is not on top of the list as far as highlighting Cage’s acting prowess goes despite playing a character with drinking problems similar to “Leaving Las Vegas”. He never really gave a convincing performance this time around and seems to be selling out. Rose Byrne gives a good account of herself as the troubled daughter of Lucinda despite having a limited screen time.

The pacing of the movie is done well, as Proyas utilizes a series of eye-catching montages during the first part of story to unveil relevant information with some timely camera work and suspense-filled music. The use of CGI works well in key disaster scenes, one of which took days to both set up and shoot, and able to deliver a significant sense of urgency to Cage’s character as he becomes involved in these tragic events.

Holes in the plot are kept to a bare minimum, with loose ends being tied up towards the end. The twist in the climax is an attention-grabbing scene and answers some of the questions found during the beginning of the story.

As a whole, “Knowing” is not the director’s best feature film he has made, as his “I, Robot” flick gets some great points going for it, with “The Crow” coming in as second. Still, this is a solid piece of work, as he once again tries to send the message of hope amidst grim realities. This accessible pulse-pounding thriller may not be the best nor unique piece you’ll find, but what you have is a riveting story; a narrative about what lies ahead, and having the faith to know that all will be good in the end.

FILM RATING: 3 stars (out of 5)