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Flatliners
(Afterlife/Med. School/Frankenstein) 9*********skulls
*Blood* *Violent* *Strong Language* *No Sexual Situations* *No Nudity* *Not Gory*
19/Color/Min.//Rated
Director.........
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Music............
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Critique: Imaginative imagery, fine performances, and a tight story highlight this outstanding of metaphysics, ethics, and morality. Kiefer Sutherland is wonderful as a modern day Dr. Frankenstein, researching the possibility of consciousness after death. One by one, he and his colleagues discover that their is consciousness after death, and that one is persecuted for one's sins in life by the victims.
Plot Summary:
After Nelsons return, girl 1.20 min. and Baldwin 1.30 bid to be next while Bacon and Platt call them crazy. Unbeknownst to the rest, Nelsons visions of children playing and himself falling from a tree and a n injured dog continue even on the way home and then there while he sleeps. Baldwin at home watches a video of his engagement and calls his fiancee to tell her he loves her, just in case anything should happen to him. While dead on the table, Baldwin sees comforting and somewhat erotic scenes of women, aunts, nurses, girls fawning over him. The struggle to bring him back leaves him dead over two minutes. Bacon brings him back. In the cafe, Dave/Bacon the athiest postulates they only see what they want. When girl bids ten, Dave moves it to 2:20 and Rachel walks out. Nelson asks Joe alone if there was anything negative about his experienced. Negative. As Nelson walks home, his visions continue. A bag lady addresses Nelson by name: "In the end, we all know what we've done". Nelson follows his dog champ into an abandoned building ansd meets a little boy who kicks and punches him nearly to death. On Halloween, Joe tries to pick up afterdeath girl, and has visions that his sex video girls are on a student union tv, asking him why he filmed them. At home, Nelson senses someone approaching and flees. As the campus celebrates Halloween, the team assembles with Joe near a nervous breakdown and a pounded on Nelson. Dave, who brought back the first two, flatlines for 2:20. Scenes from his life flash by, he flies over frozen mountains to a school playground where small girls sing jumprope songs2. Nelson waits a few seconds to scare Rachel and attempts to bring Dave back. Joe cant videotape, his porno women are in his camera. A minute late Dave is back. Nelson bids 4 minutes, Rachel 425, Nelson 5. All threaten to quit. Meglomaniac Nelson rails at the mutiny then agrees Rachel is next. Tv's continue to plague Joe. Nelson returns home where the little boy beats him with a hockey stick and dru
David is finally able to bring her back. He then admits that he tried to stop Rachels trip because a ten year old girl Winnie, whom he teased as a child, verbally abusing him. Joe admits that his video women are after him, and to the anger of his colleaques, Nelson admits that Billy has been following him and he was aware of the libnk dsince the second experiment. While Dave observes Rachel for the night, Nelson puts new locks on his doors and waits for Billy. In a vision, Nelson and his friends throw walks at billy in a tree. He awakens and billy whacks him with a board. Rachel wakes up early and rushes to the hospital to tell her patient that death is bad, but she is already dead. Dave has visions of himself and friends malking Winnie cry. Beautigful women speak to Joe on the street and try to pick him up using the lines he used on them. He arrives in his apartment to find his fiance Ann watching his sex videos and she leaves him. Dave calls all the Hicks in the phonebook to find Winnie's parents from whom he receivs phone number and address. As he leaves, a haggard and beaten Nelson arrives and pleads with Dave not to leave him alone. They head to Bensonville together. As Rachel works on her cadaver it becomes her father and reaches out to her. She tips over her tools and flees. Joe follows. Dave and Nelson arrive at Winnie's. Dave apologizes for having been cruel to her and Winnie forgives him and thanks him for his thoughfulness. Meanwhile, Billy Mahoney is stalking Dave in the locked Jeep with a pickaxe. Billy disappears soon after Dave arrives after smashing in the jeep window with a rock.
The group gathers in front of Rachel's appartment and argue, Nelson chews out the group making fun of their sins in comparison to his. Dave goes after Rachel and instructs the other two to help Nelson find Billy. Rachel adnmits she opened a door she shouldn't have and thus caused her father to commit suicide. The boys drive to Naelson's home town and he rtakes the car keys and leads them on a hide and seek game through dilapidated buildings. They catch up with him at Billy Mahoney's grave. Nelson relives how they stoned Billy from the branch, breaking champs back. Nelson explains he was put in a home for boys at age nine. He takes the car leaving them in the cemetary and drives off with a plan to make good his sin. Rachel meanwhille is reliving her discovery of her father as Dave receives word of Nelson'ds problems and drives off to help locate him. Rachel surprises her father injecting heroine, and he apologizes. They embrace and cry. Dave picks up the boys and they conclude that Nelson is flatlining to visit billy. Nelson calls Rachel and apologizes. She tries to tell him that every is okay but he hangs up with the message, everything we do matters. Nelson flatlines himself. He relives billys death with himself the victim as his friends battle to revive him. Billy hits him with a large stone, he falls to his death. Dave screams at god he is sorry for stepping on his turf. Dave jump-staryts Nelson one last time after 13 minutes of flatlining. Billy smiles at Nelson and he and champ walk off. Nelson revives and announces it wasn't such a good day to die. He thanks his friends. The camera focuses on a painting of Prometheus stealing fire from the gods.
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