PRISONER X (2016)

Studio:       Image Entertainment
Director:    Gaurav Seth
Writer:       Gaurav Seth
Producer:  Avi Federgreen, Robyn Bigue
Stars:     Michelle Nolden, Romano Orzari, Damon Runyan, Julian Richings, Nigel Bennett, Stewart Arnott, Gianpaolo Venuta, Jim Codrington

Review Score:

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Summary:

With the entire world on the brink of war, a CIA agent must break a captured terrorist suspected of being a time traveler.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

January 2002 – While transporting weapons-grade uranium into Montana from Canada, Ramiro crashes his car and is captured by the CIA. Suspecting the man of being a terrorist, agents Jefferson and Fischer oversee Ramiro’s torturous interrogation.

Blood work reveals that Ramiro’s body contains nano devices and synthetic genes. Ramiro writes astronomical coordinates and future dates on a piece of paper. When a star explodes the next day precisely as predicted, Jefferson and Fischer conclude that Ramiro is a time traveler.

2017 – Fifteen Years Later – Terrorist bombings have murdered millions all over the world. Rampant paranoia has multiple countries preparing for continued war against one another.

Believing he is close to a major discovery, yet needing help to glean further information from Ramiro, Fischer compels CIA agent Carmen Reese to break her leave of absence and join him in the underground blacksite codenamed ‘Sandbox.’ Carmen arrives at the base to find Fischer dead from suicide in the bathtub of his onsite apartment.

April 2002 – Ramiro tells Fischer that he is from 147 years in the future. He claims that a man named Abraham, his group’s leader, is the terrorist responsible for the bombings disrupting the planet. Ramiro dies suddenly and brings himself back to life as a warning for Fischer to pay attention to him if he wishes to defeat Abraham and save the world.

2017 – Sandbox Day 2 – Tracing Fischer’s last moves with the help of agent Jim Sullivan, Carmen finds a voicemail for Fischer from Dr. Mark Ellis. In it, Ellis says that his inability to crack a critical equation marks the end of Project Sigma.

Carmen has her first encounter with Ramiro in his holding room. They discuss how the time-traveling terrorist cell created unrest in Iraq as apparent agents for Saddam Hussein.

Jefferson shows Carmen a device found in the wreckage of a deadly blast in Mumbai. Ramiro activates it for Carmen, revealing that it is a component necessary to construct a portable time machine. Jefferson and Carmen fear that Abraham is journeying from city to city setting off explosions.

2016 – One Year Earlier – While in bed as lovers, Fischer opens up to Carmen about his guilt over the drug overdose death of his son Jordan. News breaks of an explosion at the Indian Point nuclear power plant, which kills Carmen’s sister and niece.

2017 – Sandbox Day 6 – Carmen finds signs of a struggle inside Fischer’s apartment. Carmen tells Jefferson her additional suspicion that Abraham has a mole inside Sandbox.

Woken from a haunting vision of a little girl, Carmen observes Jim furtively entering and exiting an electrical room. Field station captain Paul Williams tells Carmen that the surveillance camera in that hallway regularly goes offline to resynch during 10-second windows. Williams also tells Carmen that Jefferson deleted log entries of secret communications with the Pentagon.

November 2002 – Ramiro tells Fischer that he comes from a Baltic city that doesn’t exist yet. However, the city was destroyed when the United States liberated Albania. Ramiro says Abraham’s group of 99 people traveled to Kashmir on September 9, 1999 because nine denotes Judgment Day in Islamic theory.

Ramiro also explains that the past cannot be changed. Only an alternate timeline with a different future can be created. Fischer realizes that bombs cannot be sent to the past because they would not explode on the current timeline. Rather, they have to be forwarded into the future for detonation.

2017 – Sandbox Day 13 – Carmen asks Jefferson to consider that Ramiro staged his car accident and was captured by choice. Williams contacts Carmen again to relay his discovery that Jefferson’s secret communications were with the Secretary of Defense. Williams also tells Carmen that Jefferson erased several of Fischer’s interrogation sessions with Romero.

Carmen confronts Jefferson about the erased sessions. Jefferson explains that Fischer requested offline interviews and Jefferson was within his authority to approve them.

Carmen concludes that whatever Ramiro privately revealed devastated Fischer enough to drive him to suicide. Whoever visited Fischer in his apartment then frightened him further.

Frustrated when Ramiro is uncooperative during another session, Carmen begins punching him. Jim enters and Carmen draws her weapon. Carmen confronts Jim about his trips to the electrical room. Jim explains that he keeps his weed there since private quarters are regularly searched. Jim subdues Carmen as Jefferson enters. Carmen confronts Jefferson about his secret communications, which he explains were personal conversations asking for government assistance with protecting his daughter.

Jefferson terminates Carmen. While packing her things, Carmen is summoned to a meeting with President Charles Turner. Turner tells Carmen that intelligence now believes Abraham’s men are capable of impersonating anyone through genetic manipulation.

Carmen tells the president that Fischer was wracked with guilt over his son’s death. The visitor in Fischer’s apartment was actually a hypersomnia hallucination of Jordan, which she knows because she suffered similar visions. Fischer’s desperation drove his desire to build a time machine with which he could save his son, provided he could get the required information out of Ramiro. Turner reinstates Carmen’s position at Sandbox.

Sandbox Day 21 – News breaks of several bombings in Russia, which leads to retaliation against America. The base goes into lockdown, shaking violently as nuclear winter seemingly envelops the world. Ramiro appears visibly shaken by the devastation.

Sandbox Day 29 – Jefferson and Carmen continue monitoring Ramiro, who hasn’t slept in four days. Ramiro needles Jim about the worldwide devastation, causing the distraught agent to pull a gun. Another guard kills Jim before he can shoot Ramiro.

Carmen accuses Ramiro of being Abraham. Carmen exposes that Ramiro acted alone and made up his entire story to manipulate countries into killing each other through paranoia. Carmen concludes that Ramiro drove Fischer to commit suicide simply by revealing the truth, causing Fischer to blame himself for the lives lost because he fell for Ramiro’s lies. Ramiro confesses.

Jefferson and Carmen agree to execute Ramiro by taking him outside and exposing him to a slow radiation death. Before being escorted up in the elevator, Ramiro passes Carmen a hand drawn schematic for constructing a time machine. Carmen counters that the design is useless without the equation Dr. Ellis and Fischer could not deduce. Although he initially feigns ignorance, fear of his impending death compels Ramiro to write down the required mathematic equation. Ramiro then activates his suicide implant and drops dead.

The elevator door opens to the outside world. Jefferson steps out in shock, realizing that the environment is safe. Carmen reveals that the global devastation was staged, and no one else at the base knew, in order to create a scenario that would convince Ramiro to give up the time travel information. The president even staged a press conference to go along with the plan, although Jim’s death was an unplanned consequence.

Satisfied with her success, Carmen later gets into her car and drives away from Sandbox after reflecting on her family.

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Review:

In the first five minutes of “Prisoner X,” a man smuggling uranium into the United States crashes his car, gets captured, and is subsequently interrogated by two men from the CIA.  Then within the span of just one movie minute, curious blood work results and the fortuitous prediction of an astronomical explosion cause the agents to conclude they aren’t only dealing with a terrorist.  They have a time traveler on their hands.

Although that one minute actually encompasses two months, it’s jarring how quickly everyone accepts such an improbable circumstance.  On the other hand, it’s refreshing that “Prisoner X” doesn’t want to waste time convincing you to come to the same conclusion in real time with its characters.  The movie straight up says, “here is the premise we are working with, get on board and go with it.”  With this, “Prisoner X” provides fair warning to pay close attention.  Because the film’s slowly built suspense comes at you surprisingly fast.

After 15 years in custody, Fischer is closer to uncovering Ramiro’s endgame, but not close enough.  It’s 2017 and bombings all over the world have paranoid countries readying for war with each other.  Fischer knows Ramiro is integral to exposing a supposed network of time-traveling radicals believed to be responsible for the devastation.  He merely needs another mind to take him all the way there.

That’s where Carmen comes in.  On a leave of absence from the CIA since her family was killed in a catastrophic power plant attack, Carmen isn’t anxious to get back to work.  Nonetheless, it’s hard to say no to a direct order from the president.

Carmen arrives at the underground base to play Clarice Starling to Ramiro’s Hannibal Lecter.  She quickly realizes that Ramiro isn’t the only person keeping secrets regarding Project Sigma.  More than one mystery is clearly in play, and uncovering the identity of the mastermind is key to keeping the terrorist plot from blanketing the planet in nuclear winter.

Based on the novella “Truth” by Robert Reed, “Prisoner X” combines the Samuel L. Jackson thriller “Unthinkable” with the sci-fi setup of “Predestination” (review here).  Powered predominately by tense character confrontations and conversations, most of the story is told rather than expressly shown.  Yet terrific performances from a troupe of under-the-radar Canadian talents create intrigue through acting alone.

Romano Orzari puts pinches of Jeremy Irons into cultured Islamic terrorist Ramiro.  Michelle Nolden calls to mind Cate Blanchett in the confidently collected way she embodies Carmen.  Julian Richings, Canada’s answer to Lance Henriksen, rounds out the top trio with the usual tone of uncertain allegiance he brings to his shifty supporting characters.

Admiration is in order for any low-budget indie that can smartly execute big ideas, even when limited by small scope.  That is precisely what “Prisoner X” does.

Almost the entire movie takes place within the concrete confines of an underground bunker.  These grey walls aren’t visually welcoming in the least.  Then again, the story is tailored to exist in a slim, grim environment occupied by only a handful of people.  It’s hard to fault a film for fitting within an affordably simple frame when that is all its fiction requires.

Being a dialogue-driven movie with a time travel theme, “Prisoner X” isn’t too complicated to keep up with.  However, new information comes constantly, so your mind is forbidden from wandering for even a brief moment.  At the same time, the script thinks enough of your intelligence to not hold your hand with over-explained exposition, nor does it cheat to confuse anyone unfairly in an effort to be overly clever.

For a movie throwing a lot of details at an audience, it could be more selective about what gets loaded into the viewer’s brain.  Some red herrings are overly distracting.  A big deal will be made out of a certain possibility through repeated mentions only for it to be explained away later with one simple sentence (Jim and the hallway room, for example).  Several such story screws could stand another tightening turn, though the plot plays out believably enough overall.

The production itself doesn’t have the bang to captivate through action or eye candy.  But the film stays engaging through an entertaining story solidly sold by a convincing cast.  It may even take the entire 85 minutes to realize that “Prisoner X” accomplishes so much with so little.  That fact earns an approving checkmark in any indie genre fan’s book.

Review Score:  75

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