At the end we know the girl killed herself and the addict’s father framed him so he would get off drugs in prison. What wasn’t clear was why the addict woke up in the dead girl’s bathtub with a gun. He got out of the tub, went into where the dead girl was, and got knocked out by Eric. Eric thought the addict had killed her and the addict thought Eric had killed her. But why was the addict unconscious in the bathtub? I guess we’re left to assume the addict came, found the girl dead, and then… what? Getting into the bathtub fully clothed with a gun and passing out doesn’t seem like something someone would do in that situation, even someone who is high, but I guess that’s the only explanation. She left him, not the other way around. He still wanted to be with her. What would a high person do if he found his girlfriend dead? Call the police? Probably not. Leave the scene? Probably. Go lie down in the bathtub and pass out. Probably not. He obviously had been straight enough to go to her house to plead with her to stay with him, but apparently too high to do anything but pass out in the bathtub after he found her dead.

By the way, I liked the movie, which is why I wanted to understand the sequence of events. If I hadn’t liked the movie I wouldn’t have cared if it made sense or not.

One common theme that I was able to glean from both movies though is that memory is just so unreliable, like Inception kinda unreliable…

It’s funny… I almost would prefer not to score movies here because so much stock (both good and bad) are given to that random number. But I also get it, from a browsing standpoint, it easily catches the eye and will draw people to higher scores.

The main reason I didn’t score it super high is simple – it was kinda boring. Which should be informative to me seeing as though I would literally write Extracted if given the opportunity to write a screenplay. I would. I know it.

I totally meant to wax eloquent about the Bible scene. I even have it in my notes. Shoot. Yes, his comment about the Bible with the priest was telling, and then he basically dies with it believing himself guilty. But what does the viewing audience do with the fact that he believed himself guilty, and yet wasn’t. Though, given the opportunity to pistol whip the guy in the barn and flee for his life? He takes it. And given the opportunity to fly into a rage with his old friend that ends up mortally wounding himself, he takes it. Oh, and by the way, he was an addict. Ok, so he didn’t kill his girlfriend… but he wasn’t exactly innocent in the end. That is the overriding take away for me. So we may think ourselves innocent of THE THING, but are we really? No. No we are not. Like a scene from Kafka’s The Trial, wherein K is guilty of … SOMETHING, but he doesn’t know what. But obviously he’s guilty of SOMETHING, we all are.

The moral thread, and the moral point of the movie was ambiguous to me. The Bible, one of the most iconic moral identifiers ever to the point of almost cliche, is even flashed on the screen, and yet, I wasn’t sure what they were trying to say with it. Keep the faith maybe? Be good? Was it even a comment on redemption? Redemption from the crime he didn’t comment? Or the crimes he did?

Even worse? Tom and his wife gave away the consciousness-jumping technology (technology remember is always a symbol of evil and unchecked power) in order to get a chance at getting Tom back. If you want to talk about crimes in this movie, it was Abbey (Tom’s wife) who gave away a technology that is capable of selling souls to the highest bidder. Don’t like facial recognition abuses in China? This would be infinitely worse! And she just gave it away to the criminal justice system hellbent on pushing indictments with the tech!!

Alright alright alright!! I’ll adjust the score of my review, and add a bunch of this stuff I just wrote! hahahaha. But I don’t know even if it will go up. There are tons of good conflict here, and tons of good moral soapbox standing possible. But does it add up to anything? Maybe I could find the screenplay author and talk to them about it? hrmm. I’ll see.

But of course Anthony does not know anything about the lie, and so the thought of Adrienne’s death as a suicide never crosses his mind. In fact, after his final confrontation with his drug dealer friend, Eric, Anthony finally accepts the “truth” of him being solely responsible for killing Adrienne, not Eric or anyone else. So having “proven” his own culpability while suffering a grievous wound, now is his last and best chance at redemption (he was seen holding the bible, which was given to him by a priest from earlier, and which he had not “earned the right” to own thus far). And what better way to go than to willingly give his life up for another, right?

Ironic, is it not?