Once upon a time, I woke up...

Chris Pratt: Once upon a time, I woke up. I took a shower with soap.

Chris Pratt was an up and coming hockey star, until one night he got into an accident that changed everything. Chris was left with short term memory loss. Chris still wanting to maintain a normal life, takes a job working as a night janitor at a bank, which leads to his involvement in a well planned heist.

Starts off really strong, the first scene is intense. Right from the beginning Scott Frank sets the mood, this isn’t going to be a light hearted film where everything plays out according to plan. Chris was driving recklessly and anyone could see that, and the accident that he was a part of changed not only his life but those who were with him. Chris cannot change that and has to live with losing not only his memory but two of his best friends during the accident.

Then we see how Chris has started to move on, he is starting to write again, do basic training exercises so that he can remember his day. We see that Chris still has ambitions, that he is determined to make it somewhere. Chris wants to be a teller at the bank. All though through all of this we still see that Chris cannot talk to his girlfriend at the time of the accident Kelly. All though he has come a long way it is still difficult for the two to talk about what happened and how it forever changed their lives.

In Comes Gary Spargo, a man who knows all too much about Chris's injuries and how it is affecting and Gary takes advantage of that, by pretending he can offer Chris something even his own parents are reluctant to give him and that is money. With the promise of Money, power and happiness Chris decides to help out Gary with a little help from Luvlee who we learn is just playing Chris.

Chris realizes too late what he has done, he cannot go back now, and must face the consequences head on.

Not at all a fast paced film, just well paced. It didn’t need to get ahead of itself; therefore it took the plot slow. Chris needed to be shown struggling before we could ever believe that he would help out Spargo and his buddies. We needed to see how Chris's parents treated him after the accident. This film didn’t dive right into the heist part of it, it allowed for a smooth transition from simple man to confused man. Chris began to struggle with his thoughts and his decisions, questioning what was right and what was wrong before he ultimately came to realize what he was doing.

Gary Spargo: My old man used to say to me, probably the only thing we ever really agreed on, was that whoever has the money has the power. You might wanna jot that down in your book. It's something you're gonna need to remember.

Easily an entertaining film, not the best of the best, but I wasn’t hoping for that. I wanted a well developed, well planned out film and I got just that. I easily got into Chris's recovery, hoped the best for him and mini spoiler I was sad when Ted the cop died. I was hoping he wouldn’t have died. But all these little things brought realism to the film, and that is really all anyone could want. Easily a film that relies on its lead Joseph Gordon-Levitt for the painful scenes, and he is amazing. I learned that he trained and hung out and attended real classes for those with short term memory loss. Joseph also let the role consume him; he could little sleep and work out allowing him to grow weary and tired. That is dedication. Joseph stated that before filming wrapped up he had been working on the character of Chris Pratt for 11 months. A film like this would probably take 3 or 4 months at tops to film. Joseph cared enough about the performance to go and learn what it was like to live with short term memory loss and all his hard work paid off.

Chris Pratt: I started skating again. I'm not as good as I used to be, but I'm okay. What happened that night along Route 24 is a part of me now. I just hope that one day Kelly will be ready to see me again and I can finally tell her what I've only been able to say in my dreams. Until then, all I can do is wake up, take a shower, with soap, and try to forgive myself. If I can do that, then maybe others will forgive me too. I don't know if that will happen, but I guess I'll just have to work backwards from there.

A good film. Go rent it, I am saddened by the fact that I didn’t go and see this one at the cinema when it was out, and that I waited two years to rent it. If you want to see this, do not wait another second. Go and rent it.


9/10