Retro Raunch Revisit

FLATLINERS (1990)
Kiefer Sutherland, Kevin Bacon, Julia Roberts, William Baldwin, Oliver Platt, Hope Davis, Joshua Rudoy
Directed by Joel Schumacher
Released August 10, 1990 (Happy 35th Anniversary)
Chicago medical student Nelson Wright is walking along a waterfront and with the sun going down, states in a famous phrase [attributed to Lakota leaders Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull], "Today is a good day to die." He meets up with his friends & fellow classmates -- David, the valiant atheist and most skilled of the students who is praised but suspended for saving a woman's life in the absence of doctors; Rachel, the sensitive introvert who interviews a collection of people about their encounters with dying; Joe, the womanizing Casanova hunk who'll hit on any hot babe with a pulse; and Randy, the bowtied goofy comic relief who's trying to find a title for his memoirs. From Nelson's prompting, the hotshot future practitioners discuss one of life's biggest eternal mystery questions: what happens after death? Nelson introduces his secret tests on controlled near death experiences that take place after-hours in a Campus wing of their University-under-renovation. Scaffolding, plastic tarp and a leaky roof surround the constructed makeshift lab, but the necessary operating table & surgery instruments are at the ready. Nelson is initially scoffed at but under the guise of ambitious academic research, his friends agree to lend a hand, and he subjects himself to being flatlined (having the heartbeat and brainwaves shut down) for 1 minute. Though pronounced clinically "dead", he is resuscitated from a nether region. As crazy as it is, Nelson's extraordinary trial run has worked and at first, he doesn't describe what he saw: an incident in his childhood of bullying a boy named Billy Mahoney because the moment began peacefully innocuous. He is vague in his telling that something has affected him.

The others, except Randy who is the group's voice of reason and acts as a monitor, drop their earlier reservations and decide to undergo their own NDE. Next up is skeptical Joe whose trippy flashback currently reveals his numerous sexual conquests as a Hefner-esque horndog who videotapes women without their awareness or consent. Joe is the Rob Lowe sex tape scandal x 10. David's NDE also recalls the childhood bullying of a black girl named Winnie Hicks which often left her in tears. All 3 men describe a feeling that resonates and soon start having vivid hallucinations as a direct result of their NDE's that become more distressing. An uneasy, pessimistic & neurotic Randy is worried that the risky course they embarked on flirts too close to disaster. Each daring participant grew increasingly competitive in their bidding war one-upmanship of pushing their flatline timeframe to a higher count meaning the tricky method of bringing them back ran higher odds of failure. A shroud of darkness sets in as Nelson gets the shit kicked out of him twice from hockey stick-wielding Billy. Engaged Joe who is soon to be married, is bothered by voyeuristic visions of his trophy girls that nag his conscience and condemn his cheating. David has the tables turned on him from an encounter on the train which sees Winnie mercilessly taunting him with foulmouthed playground verbal abuse. On Halloween night, Rachel is ready for her NDE as David unsuccessfully tries to stop her from partaking. She almost dies for real when a power outage hits leaving her helpless. With her friends freaking out trying to bring her back, she is at first unresponsive to the CPR shocks from the emergency defibrillator paddles but she is revived. Her sad mind-journey voyage was that of her beloved Dad committing suicide when she was little. Devastated & grief-stricken, she always blamed herself.

Nelson, David and Joe share their dismaying NDE stories with severely bruised Nelson's encounters being the most frightening & torturous. A remorseful David sets out to make amends in hopes that his nightmares will stop. Afterwards, Joe's fiancée, Anne, visits his apartment while he's out. She finds his illicit videotapes of homemade bedroom softporn [a forerunner to the sleazy building owner Baldwin would play 3yrs later in SLIVER] and watches selections of the harem. He comes home to find her heartbroken from betrayal and she breaks up with him. With their relationship over, his visions end. Nelson joins David who visits Winnie. Now married with child and having moved on, she still shows a glimpse of fragility. David apologizes for his hurtful behavior and the humiliations she endured. She accepts the apology and thanks him. He leaves heading back to his truck to find Nelson beating the living daylights out of himself in the vehicle with a pickaxe (David is a rock climber) which is infact another thrashing administered by Billy. David interrupts Nelson's attack and both men head home. From their blossoming chemistry, Rachel finds solace with David and they sleep together that night (with Nelson's jealous mutual affection for her forming the love triangle). A stirred up Nelson drags Joe and Randy to a graveyard to reveal he killed Billy after throwing rocks at him while he was cornered up a tree causing him to fall. Nelson leaves upset & alone resulting in David temporarily bailing on Rachel to pick up the stranded duo. Rachel wanders into the bathroom where she has another run-in with her father. He expresses how sorry he is to his daughter for leaving her in the manner he did; having returned from Vietnam addicted to heroin and caught having fatally overdosed.

[In many other hands, let's be honest, Rachel's foray would have been coming to terms with molestation]. Like Joe and David before her, she feels relief from the lifted weight of sorrow. Nelson calls her saying he needs to flatline again to finally free himself of suffering. He also apologizes for enlisting them all in his dangerous & reckless experiment, and for the unpleasant ordeals they each went through. The 3 men reach Nelson first who has been "dead" for a whopping 9 minutes. With Rachel's arrival, the friends frantically try to save him and struggle to bring him back, but this time Nelson's NDE is sacrificial as he puts himself in Billy's place to be the one who dies from the tree fall. Unable to stimulate any activity in Nelson, the friends are prepared to declare him dead -- with the potential of his passing bringing not only expulsion but criminal charges. But Nelson's expiry date is still a long ways off from this mortal coil, and he's not ready to cash in his code blue chips just yet. With a new narrative in Nelson's punishment, Billy has forgiven him bringing an end to Nelson being throttled. As David gives one last CPR shock from the paddles, Nelson is miraculously awakened to the alleviation of his friends, and he whispers, "Today wasn't a good day to die." FLATLINERS is loaded with symbolism. By physically returning to a bystander version of their past to see the youthful wrongs they committed/caused/witnessed, and particularly before balancing previous unresolved harmful actions, these ill at ease manifestations of traumatizing transgressions (which also incorporate the memory & perspective of other victims) would obviously follow them back to present-reality adulthood; returning indeed to haunt.

Flatlining by the foursome became an extreme form of misadventure where unintended consequences from carried burdens that took an alternate physical form, brought serious self-examining repercussions (before any resolution) that required difficult admission of faults; confession; empathy; truthful repentance; and the healing forgiveness of those mistreated to ultimately release both parties from repressed pain. The ego-driven mistake of playing God means paying the price in an unexpected form of martyrdom. Nelson as the maverick ringleader has the rush of an adrenaline junkie. He's a manipulative prick in his desire for fame and could easily be written off as callous but his hesitancy shows he is not entirely without a moral compass, even though he crosses ethical boundaries with his implemented key that attempts to unlock ultimate knowledge. He introduces his group to a project of 'induced demise' with gung ho that pushes the envelope, but the afterlife that waits is not a continuation of existence to explore possible heavenly hereafter in the original sense of his purpose. Instead, it's a landing detached of warmth, and a purgatory represented by a situated troubling moment stuck in an endless loop; a needle in the groove of guilt & regret. With an obsession for decoding the great beyond that intensifies, he's scared and lashes out with tantrums of immaturity but still maintains a tough air of rebellious overconfidence. Nelson bears slight tragic hints of an unhinging Dr. Jekyll and a vain Victor Frankenstein who are fatally penalized for toying with death. As far as his impetuousness fares in the universal mad scientist manual, his creation quickly gets out of hand which worsens into a mess that requires his unhealthy creator self to be rescued.

There are no blissful auras; or tunnels of light; or being outside of their bodies looking downward on themselves; or angels; or Pearly Gates; or reunions with deceased loved ones welcoming the group to the 'other side' with open arms. The friends have entered a dimensional door which is very familiar but changes them through an unsettling revelation of personal baggage in the background. They confront uncomfortable secrets where the buried old ghosts of each can only be pacified by an atoning restitution. With accusations of Gen X cynicism, sophomoric sermonizing for grand answers with arrogant audacity, and opinionated pretentious pop psychology [c'mon, this was the beginning of the ranting-slacker 90's], FLATLINERS is a cautionary tale with decorative flair. Its spooky gothic edge, palette of neon color lighting, and shadowy gargoyled architecture borrows from BLADE RUNNER, and takes an intriguing concept of 'life flashing before one's eyes' that straddles a middleground of compelling with implausibility. The repetitive course of the friends does sag in the individual occurrences but in the movie's defense, would have been more bloated if Randy was a 5th journeyman. On its surface, what may look like a thin story threaded with thick melodramatic ponderings and tense peril, is not outright aimless in its logic but rather offers a consideration on the nature of sin, responsibility & redemption. Without being incredibly profound, and with some lazy writing culminating in a textbook ending that is hurried & tacked on, the movie regardless brings heavier messages about catharsis & closure. Bolstered by stylish atmospheric production design and a strong talented cast of Brat Pack-ish rising stars, what's delivered here is also one of the decade's first entries in suspenseful psychological thrillers, alongside JACOB'S LADDER, with some toes dipping in paranormal/supernatural sci-fi.

Sutherland clearly steals the movie and Roberts has the least to do among the friends. Her episode is the weakest which is unusual considering her high profile from PRETTY WOMAN could've/should've easily brought her installment more showcase. [Both stars announced their engagement shortly after FLATLINERS' premiere and set their wedding for the following summer. They became tabloid fodder when the groom was stood up at the altar by the bride who ran off to Ireland with Jason Patric -- Sutherland's castmate in THE LOST BOYS. Sutherland's drinking and alleged affair with a go-go dancer was said to have ended their relationship. When Sutherland was set to host SNL a few months later, Roberts got wind of her ex's planned opening monologue about being ditched that took potshots at her and begged him not to do the routine. He ignored her and did so anyway to huge laughs. Sutherland would reteam with Bacon 2yrs later in A FEW GOOD MEN, and reteam with Platt 6yrs later in A TIME TO KILL]. Perhaps forgotten is that FLATLINERS was a box office hit, and received a 1991 Oscar nomination for Best Sound Editing. [It lost to THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER which featured Baldwin's brother, Alec]. Had this movie not been pre-BATMAN Schumacher's [Sutherland incidentally is in 5 of the directors films], I'd love to have seen David Cronenberg at the helm. As for FLATLINERS (2017)? Sutherland has a starring role and claimed the new version, while geared for millennials and widely panned as overt self-indulgent posturing more akin to TV's Grey's Anatomy, was not a remake but a sequel. Despite being a different character (named Barry Wolfson) in a city unidentified (hello Toronto), and with no reference whatsoever to the 1990 events [except for a deleted scene near the end that was cut, and meant as a homage for older audiences], Sutherland added that his playing of a professor/Chief of Staff at a Med School University is actually Nelson who has just changed his name and moved on from his earlier tampering misdeeds.