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Djimon Hounsou as Agent Henry Carver

The film does express some interesting ideas about the nature of fate and free will, but the story applies them in ways that make no narrative sense. Ultimately, Nick decides that the best way to trick the "watchers" and their visions of the future is to avoid making decisions until the last possible moment—so he gives each of his teammates an envelope, with instructions to open those envelopes at specific times, and then to follow the instructions that are contained within the envelopes. If they don't know what they are doing until they open those envelopes, then their actions will be more "spontaneous" and impossible to predict, or so the theory goes.

But wait a minute, wouldn't Nick have to have a pretty clear idea of the future already just to give everyone else their instructions? And once he has got everyone going down their various paths, wouldn't the fact that he has set everything up be, itself, a sign that none of their actions are really all that spontaneous after all? The film tries to worm out of this paradox by adding a scene in which Nick gets someone to erase his memory of giving those orders—so now, when Nick opens his own envelope, its contents will be as much of a surprise to him as everyone else's instructions are to them. But once the wheels have been set in motion, does it really make a difference if the person who set them in motion forgets that he did so?

Camilla Belle as Kira Hudson

And that is only one of the problems with this film, on a conceptual level. Another big problem is that there don't seem to be any limits to what a "pusher" can do, when it comes to planting false memories in other people's minds; and, as the characters begin to argue over whose memories are real and whose memories are not, you may find yourself losing interest in the story as a whole. If there is no way of knowing what the underlying reality is, then there is no way to know what's really at stake or who should really be trusted. And no, the fact that someone can produce a photo to back up their version of the past means nothing, since we have already seen that "shifters" have the power to change the physical appearance of objects.

So, full marks to director Paul McGuigan (The Reckoning, Lucky Number Slevin) for grounding the story in a believable external world, full of sights and sounds that are at once somewhat exotic to a Western audience, by virtue of being located on another continent, yet are also rather familiar. It's just a shame that the story has no solid footing on the internal level, where character and plotting matter.

Talk About It

1. If you could see the future, and you knew that you would probably die by pursuing a course of action, would you still pursue it? What would be worth dying for, or risking death for?
2. What does the film have to say about fate and free will? What role does spontaneity play? If you follow an instruction the moment you receive it, without thinking about it beforehand, is that a spontaneous action? What if the person who gave you the order had planned it long in advance? How does this compare to situations in which we obey (or don't) what God is telling us to do?
3. How do our memories define us? How are we defined by the memories that other people have of us? Do we need to forget things in order to be free?

The Family Corner

Push is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, brief strong language (a few four-letter words), smoking and a scene of teen drinking (Cassie buys some liquor because alcohol helps "watchers" to see the future more clearly).

Photos © Copyright Summit Entertainment

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