"Proof of Life"

This weekend I have been getting some rest and escapism as well as cleaning and trying to not admit that my allergies are acting up. I finished watching Season 2 of "House" on DVD and have had to wait on watching Season 3 because the first episode/disc was out,and I hate watching them out of order.

One of the Season 2 episodes, "No Reason," really had some elements that hit home. It's a complicated story but the upshot is that a man shoots the title character and in the aftermath a medical decision is made that causes him to not have the pain in his leg (at least temporarily) but causes him to not be as smart as usual. I was identifying with it all over the place. I think I would do almost anything to avoid another brain injury or further malfunction. It kinda bummed me out. I also had a random thought--House, playing blues on his guitar and with his leg problems reminded me of Joe Dawson from "Highlander," with his blues guitar playing and leg problems. I have to say that House is probably a but more interesting a character, though. I caught another episode, "Half-Wit" in which a decision has to be made whether to do surgery on a savant which would make him "normal" and also take away his gift. If I had had the choice, I would rather keep a gift than be normal and not have it. Of course, that's just me. When you feel that a certain ability is what defines you, to lose that ability really screws with your head.

So I rented "Proof of Life," with Russell Crowe and Meg Ryan. As anyone who knows me is aware, I love Russell Crowe's movies. I do not like Meg Ryan. So it was just for the experience of broadening my Crowe knowledge that I watched it.

The story is that Crowe is a K & R expert (kidnapping and ransom) who works for a large insurance company. Ryan is the wife of a do-gooding engineer who works for an oil company. Ryan and hubby are down in South America where he is supposed to be building a dam, while their marriage implodes. I did not have any real empathy or interest in either Ryan or the hubby because they seemed pretty whiny. Hubby is kidnapped and Crowe is brought in to help rescue him, until it turns out that the oil company has let their kidnapping insurance lapse. So Meg is up the creek, especially since Hubby's strident sister turns up to raise money and "help." When Crowe goes to leave, I felt like saying "I'm right there with you" or, "not a moment too soon!"

For reasons which never are clear or believable to me, Crowe returns to try to rescue/ransom hubby. He succeeds. The more I see hubby and Ryan, the more I don't care. They were that annoying. Crowe is heroic, saving the husband of the woman he loves (eye-rolling) then going off into the sunset. It was a good tale, and Crowe was great, but...sheesh. There's one scene where Ryan slaps Crowe and it seemed so fake that I was amazed. Also, and this may be petty, but it really looked in one seen as if Ryan's one eye was swollen shut or something, and i could not get the image of what she looks like now out of my mind. To me, the movie would have been a lot more satisfying if I could have rooted for the rescue to suceed for reasons other than Crowe's character's success. I really did not care if hubby ever escaped or if his feet got better. It also got me wondering how the family was able to raise the six hundred thousand for the ransom. The movie, in short, got me wondering a bunch of things but none which were probably what was intended.

It did get me thinking and wondering why Crowe never seems to play villains. Maybe it is because it is harder to play good (if conflicted) guys. It's probably a good thing--I don't know if my heart could take it to watch him play a villain.

Also, in the movie there were references to the bad guys providing "proof of life" to the family, usually having the victim hold up a recent newspaper. I guess it got me thinking about the difference between being alive and living. One can go through the motives, breathe, interact with others, yet on a certain level not really be alive. There ought to be a term for that, what people do after what makes them truly live ( a person, a passion, hope, whatever it might be) has disappeared.