Sitting and chatting with Red Lights star Cillian Murphy and director Rodrigo Cortés proved to be quite enlightening — and they are quite charming fellows. One with a gentle Irish accent, the other with a mesmerizing Spanish accent. It was dreamy. I definitely wouldn’t mind if they were the voices on my GPS system or if they were the voices of an audio book (perhaps Fifty Shades of Grey?).
Nonetheless, Red Lights explores the world of the paranormal — but with the twist. It mixes in skepticism led by psychologist Margaret Matheson (Sigourney Weaver) and her assistant Tom Buckley (Murphy). They go around trying to investigate frauds who claim to be psychics and mediums — they are kind of like hybrid of the dudes from Ghostbusters and MythBusters. They are the ParaBusters!
When a renowned retired psychic, Simon Silver (Robert De Niro) gets back into the game to show off his paranormal prowess, Margaret and Tom go on the attack to try to end his fraudulent reign once and for all!
Exciting, huh?
Listen and be swept off your feet as I talk to Cillian and Rodrigo about Red Lights and how it was to look behind the curtain of the paranormal world.
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Final thoughts on Red Lights: Based on the 31 percent rating it is getting on Rotten Tomatoes, the movie has been getting some harsh criticism. The New York Post called it “One of the most preposterous and incoherent films of 2012″, while Roger Ebert said, “For its first two acts, the movie had me in its grip. Then it comes apart.” Ebert does make a valid point, but I still stand by the fact that I was entertained by this movie. Sure, my enjoyment leans more towards the ironic side of things, but as a skeptic myself, the approach to the film was fascinating. Matheson and Buckley are like the Cagney and Lacy of paranormal investigation. I wanted to see them bust Robert De Niro and expose him as a fraud. I would SO watch a TV show like this. I can picture it now: the show would be on FX and be called Red Light Special (naturally) and would feature Sigourney Weaver and Cillian Murphy going around the world busting paranormal fakes. Sigourney would be the by-the-book uptight one, while Cillian would be the idealistic and free-spirited one. There would be a strong mother-son relationship similar to that of Walter White and Jessie Pinkman. On the side, Sigourney struggles with being taken seriously as a powerful woman and trying to find the perfect man, while Cillian would try to make his relationship with work Elizabeth Olsen‘s character, Sally. At the end of each episode we learn a moral lesson about teamwork followed by a clever one-liner by the resident quirky and lovable goofball played by Toby Jones (who is also in the movie). Why hasn’t anyone greenlit this premise yet?! In any case, if you watch Red Lights with sky high expectations solely based on Cortes’s Buried (and you shouldn’t) than you will probably be disappointed. But if you walk in with my scenario for Red Light Special in your head, you will be thoroughly entertained.
Red Lights opens in theaters July 27.
