Chaos Theory

CAUTION!!! THERE ARE SPOILERS ENCLOSED!!!!

In 2007, there was a movie released called Chaos Theory. It was directed by Marcos Siega, and written by Daniel Taplitz, and most noticeable actor is Ryan Reynolds. It isn't exactly a movie that most have heard of, nor many would probably like. It tells the story of a man who is an efficiency expert who himself is extremely organized to the point of obsession. The story is supposed to be about how he is set off schedule and slowly has his life unravel. At least that's what the taglines say. Really, it's the story about a man who recounts his trouble with his married life to a man marrying his daughter... a man he doesn't really like. That's what bookends the main story. Makes me think that the story was too short, so they had to come up with something else to get it up to feature length (it's runtime is 87 minutes total).

My biggest gripe is the use of Chaos Theory to explain the story moving along. For those of you who don't know what that is, I'll explain. Chaos Theory is basically the idea that an act can have any number of possible effects that continue to snowball; however, if the act was repeated, a different series of effects could happen. The usual explanation is the Butterfly Effect, where a butterfly flaps its wings in Japan, and the wind it generates grows as it travels, and by the time is reaches California, it is a storm. The random element is that if the same butterfly was able to go back in time and flap its wings at the same moment at the same time in the same place, its possible that a different effect might happen: the storm his Mexico instead, or there is no storm at all. This movie uses the idea of Chaos Theory as its backdrop when really every movie could. It's just cause/effect. Because A happens, then B happens. Because B happens, C happens, and so on. That's just how movies work. It's called plot development. This movie adds nothing new to the history of movies.

The one good thing about this movie is Ryan Reynolds. I really do not like Ryan Reynolds, but he really stands out in this movie. His slow decent into madness and back takes an aching amount of time (this is seriously the longest hour and 27 minute movie I've ever seen!) but it is worth watching just for his non-standard Ryan Reynolds acting. In my opinion, there are two great scenes. The first is where Ryan Reynolds' character Frank finds out that he is not the father of a child and his ecstatic joy, which immediately becomes pain because he finds out he's been sterile from birth... so where did his daughter come from? And the second is when he takes his friend out on the boat to kill him because his friend is his child's father, but the friend thinks Frank is going to kill himself. Very funny writing.

The other problem is that his movie suffers from an identity crisis. Is this movie a drama? Is it a comedy? Dark comedy maybe? It's all these things, which loses me. There are some deeply dramatic parts, and some really funny dark humor moments. The thing that really turned me off were the scenes where people are arguing about different things, but the other thinks they are talking about the same thing. Such as Frank and his wife are arguing about a child: he helps the mother get to the hospital, and she thinks he is the father. It just does nothing for me. The only time is on the boat in the lake.

Overall, I found this movie to be really boring. I had some excitement for it, and I was very much let down. The best thing is Ryan Reynolds' acting, but that alone isn't a strong enough reason to watch.

Here is a link to the trailer. Looks really funny... not so much.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TV19vnNUaAI