His (R)

No8: The Mothman Prophecies

Title: The Mothman Prophecies 

Director: Mark Pellington

Written By: Richard Hatem (screenplay), John A. Keel (Novel)

Starring: Richard Gere, Laura Linney, David Eingenberg

A reporter is drawn to a small West Virginia town to investigate a series of strange events, including psychic visions and the appearance of bizarre entities. 

Initial Thoughts:

Soooooo, not very excited about this film. Richard Gere gives it some good support but the general synopsis on the back of the case doesn't get me overly excited. The wife on the other hand is pretty chuffed with this pick so I am guessing it was her purchase and hoping that she pulls this one off!

After thoughts:

It’s been almost a week since watching this film and I am still scratching my head and wandering what exactly the point of this film was.

At the start we are introduced to John Klein (Gere) as a successful journalist who happily skips the works Christmas party to go look at a house to buy with his Wife, Mary (Debra Messing). This plus the couple on screen chemistry help build up a believable link between you and the characters. Not to give too much away but they buy the house and on their way home the ‘Mothman’ appears to Mary and causes a car accident where Mary is severely injured. 

Thanks to the previous character building we feel for Gere as his world is obviously turned upside down. This is however where for me the film split in so many directions it didn’t know where it was going and never really explained anything.  

As it happens Mary dies as a result of a tumour that I think I am right in thinking would have not been found if it wasn’t for the accident? Then the following events include John (Gere) arriving in a small town he never meant to go to, meeting people who have physic premonition’s, building a shadowy character (The Mothman) who haunts people and is thought to be evil but for some reason helps people know of impending disasters. The final flourish of the film comes with the late realisation of John about one of these prophecies and him managing to save just one person from the number of predicted deaths.

So in the end I’m left not knowing really what the point of the Mothman was, whether he was a bad man causing the accidents, a good man for warning people through weird psychic warnings or an entity that isn’t understood and really didn’t need a film being made about it.

Despite the confusing story line the acting by the cast members was enjoyable, you really felt for Gere’s character as his life fell apart and hoped that he would find solace with the help of the local Sheriff (of a town we don’t really know how or why he went to) Connie Mills (Laura Linney). This was not enough to save a film that to many pieces did not fit together with.