The Lazarus project

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Movie
German title The Lazarus project
Original title The Lazarus Project
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2008
length 96 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director John Glenn
script John Glenn
Glen Morgan
production David Hoberman
Todd Lieberman
Matt Milich
Travis Wright
music Brian Tyler
camera Jerzy Zieliński
cut Fred Raskin
occupation

The Lazarus Project is a psychological thriller directed by John Glenn from 2008.

action

Paroled Ben lives a happy life: his probation is up, he has a job he does well, a promotion pending, and his wife's marriage is happy and fulfilling. The relationship is crowned with a daughter whom he adores. Since he spent the first three years of her life behind bars, he initially turns down his brother Ricky's offer to participate in a burglary again. In addition, his wife wants to train as a real estate agent soon. The future in freedom seems secure.

However, when the management of his brewery investigates ahead of the upcoming promotion, his criminal record is revealed and he is released.

Devastated, he contacts his brother and accepts his offer: Together with another accomplice, they break into the building of a computer company to steal gold dust. Ben insists they don't take guns with them. You overwhelm a scientist and a security guard present. However, an undiscovered scientist succeeds in triggering a silent alarm that alerts the security service. While Ben is busy inside the vault, there is a shooting between the accomplice, who has taken the gun of a security guard, and two security guards, in which three people, including his brother and the accomplice, are ultimately killed. When Ben comes out of the vault, he is knocked down and arrested. Under Texas law, Ben is sentenced to death . Two years later, the sentence is carried out by lethal injection . Ben closes his eyes.

In the next scene you see Ben walking down a street. He is on his way to the small town of Mount Angel , where he is supposed to take over the post of caretaker of a mental hospital . A man named Avery, who describes himself as an "advisor," tells him that he has been given a second chance but is never allowed to leave the village or he would die and be doomed to care for his wife and daughter to lose all eternity. A short time later, Ben tries to call his wife, but no one can be reached on the number. He also breaks off a spontaneous trip there by bus after Avery expressly warns him again not to continue his journey. The next day Ben had to read in the newspaper that the bus had crashed.

In the further course, Ben also makes closer acquaintance with another patient who was previously sentenced to death in the psychiatric institution, who feels locked up and finally kills himself in Ben's presence after escaping from the institution. Increasingly suspicious and homesick for his family, Ben runs away one night, but falls on his escape and passes out. When he wakes up again, he is confronted by the director of the institution, Ezra, with the fact that his earlier story only took place in his imagination and that he has been a patient of the mental hospital for a long time. Since the death of his wife and daughter, who fell victim to an apartment fire caused by smoking a cigarette in bed, Ben has lived in a fantasy world with a past of its own.

But then it turns out that something has been played for him. Ben finds clues and details that confirm the correctness of his own memories and the falseness of the currently suggested therapeutic situation. His burglar skills enable him to find the truth in the director's office. He is part of a secret brainwashing experiment and was given an implant for permanent manipulation and personality change through hallucinogenic drugs during his fake execution . He removes the implant, copies incriminating material from the computer and confronts the doctors involved and the head of the institution. He sent the incriminating material with the threat of publication. So he blackmailed his unhindered escape and returned to his family.

criticism

The lexicon of international films saw a “thriller that breaks up the chronological narrative structure in favor of multiple interleaving, without losing the overview. Exciting conversation with a convincing main actor. "

“' The Fast and the Furious ' star Paul Walker charges his way through a thin, long-winded mystery story full of pathetic dialogues. Conclusion: Tough hunt for the truth, dreary finale "

- Cinema

Lazarus

The title of the film (and the dystopian government project it deals with) is derived from the account of the resurrection of Lazarus by Jesus Christ in the Gospel of John of the Bible (John 11). Here Jesus resurrects a friend who has been lying dead in the grave for several days.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for the Lazarus project . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , December 2008 (PDF; test number: 116 292 V / DVD / UMD).
  2. ↑ The Lazarus Project. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  3. ↑ Cinema.de