PUSH (2009): A REVIEW

When push comes to shove....

Push (2009) is a worthwhile character film. The action and suspense are servants to the study of the protagonists that the film performs and both help the movie flow very well. Starring Chris Evans as the lead, Push focuses on people with various powers known by a variety of monikers. These talented people were originally subject to Nazi experimentation but, since the end of World War II, several other countries have set out to capture and try to increase these individuals’ powers in order to make them their personal operatives. In a word, they want their own Captain Americas (or Homelanders – as long as they are controllable, the governments in question are not particularly picky).

One group performing experiments on these empowered individuals is the Division. Ten years before the film starts, Nick Gant watches his father murdered by Division agent Henry Carver (Djimon Hounsou), someone with the psychic ability to “push” others to do whatever he wants them to do. But before his father dies, the senior Gant tells Nick that someday a girl is going to give him a flower and that he must help her.

Ten years later, Nick (Chris Evans) is existing as a street gambler in Hong Kong to avoid the Division. A “Mover” – that is, someone with telekinesis – Nick has not used the power he inherited from his father for very much. He just influences the betting games to win cash, which does not require a lot of work, though even this does not always help him earn his money. This is how he remains relatively anonymous, but it makes eating and keeping a roof over his head difficult.

Meanwhile, the Division finally manages to create a power-enhancing drug that does not kill the patient, something that no government has yet accomplished. The person who receives this successful drug is a “Pusher” named Kira Hudson (Camilla Belle); she wakes after receiving the agent and escapes with the aid of a “Watcher” or clairvoyant, grabbing the only other syringe with the successful drug in it before she leaves the Division hospital. Carver orders her hunted down and captured, giving high priority to the finding of the drug as well.

Kira and Nick have a past, so it isn’t long before a couple of Division “Sniffers” – psychometrics who can read a person’s recent history by touching and/or sniffing something they have held – arrive at Nick’s place in Hong Kong looking for her. No sooner do they leave than thirteen-year-old Cassie Holmes (Dakota Fanning) arrives to tell Nick he needs to help her find Kira and the syringe. Naturally, Nick is not gung-ho for this plan, not even when Cassie reveals she is a Watcher and that her mother is in the hands of the Division. The Division keeps Mrs. Holmes own extraordinarily potent foretelling abilities in check with powerful drugs.

It takes a little more convincing, during which time Nick is injured and has to receive treatment from a “Stitcher” – someone who heals using psychic powers – but he finally realizes existing is no longer an option for him. Then Cassie gives him a flower. Nick finally puts two and two together to realize that she is the girl his father told him to help, leading him to team up with her to find the syringe and Kira.

Evans does a very good job acting alongside Fanning, and their interactions make the movie more than the plot ever could. While Push is pretty much a B movie and is not an excellent one in terms of story (government agency hunts down people with powers, where have we heard that one before?), the characterization and the acting from the two main leads are stellar. If there was nothing else to recommend the film, their performances would be enough.

Fortunately, the rest of the cast brings their A-game to the movie as well. Whether it is Hounsou’s terrifyingly urbane yet cold Carver, Belle’s air of confusion and desperate longing for at least some love and a firm place to stand, Ming-na Wen’s irritated “leave me out of this” even as she helps Nick and Cassie, or Neil Jackson’s frightening performance as Hounsou’s right-hand killer, the actors and actresses make sure to put their all into their parts. No matter how cliche the tropes, the performers hold the audience’s attention and make them care about the characters rushing through the tale.

The rest of the film is up to the challenge as well. Boilerplate though the plot may be, it has some interesting concepts of how various powers would work: there’s no super strength or flight, but you have a variety of people with specific capabilities that make for some seriously entertaining fight scenes. Nick finally gaining enough facility with his “Mover” abilities to go toe-to-toe with Carver’s pet killer, another “Mover” with more practice, is perhaps THE best fight scene in the entire film. Rather than simply show things being moved, the film adds rainbow flares every time a telekinetic uses their powers at full strength. So when Nick learns to block punches and we see Neil Jackson block bullets, the scenes of them using their powers in combat get really fun VERY fast.

Likewise for the rest of the powers in the film, which are shown reasonably and with enough general subtlety that it’s possible to see how people in the film’s world might mistake psychic powers for something else. “Bleeders” are able to scream so loud and so long that they can wreck the surrounding area or even kill a target with a prolonged shriek. Their eyes become vertical slits as they use their power, to which they are naturally immune, but no one can get close enough to them not to be killed and could easily mistake the screams for some kind of sonic weapon. “Watchers” have the power with the least flare as they see something in a series of visions, and Cassie tends to draw hers in order to make some sense of them or at least to get them out of her head, meaning most people would think her crazy.

“Sniffers” also see visions but the more skill they have, the better they can sort through them to find what they seek, allowing them to play the role of psychic in plain sight. “Pushers” prove to be the most terrifying and easiest to hide of all, not for how their powers show (their pupils expand to fill their irises or even to cover the whites of their eyes), but for their ability to convince anyone to do anything – including commit suicide. Hence the title of the film: Push.

If you want a popcorn movie with good characterization, just enough special effects to be entertaining without being overwhelming, and worldbuilding that is more subtle than usual, Push will suit your needs. The movie takes time to get going, but when it increases speed, it moves fast. It never got the sequel it deserved, but it is still entertaining to watch the heroes engage in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with some truly scary people.

Push gives viewers an idea of what powers would look like in the real world without either over or underselling the premise. It’s less “superpowers and superheroes” and more “thriller with psychics” or even a psychic thriller. So if that sounds interesting enough to be worth the purchase price, consider picking up Push while you can. This is one film that does not deserve to be lost!