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Twelve Monkeys (1995)

A review by Damian Cannon.
Copyright © Movie Reviews UK 1997
Building on the foundations of a typical post-apocalypse world, Terry Gilliam has constructed a movie which astounds on every level from the tiniest detail to the broad sweep. The cause of such widespread destruction was a malevolent virus, first detected in 1996, which managed to decimate 5 billion people. Various pockets of humanity have survived until 2035, though only through highly militant and invasive regimes. From one such group, which resides beneath Philadelphia, a "volunteer", James Cole (Bruce Willis), is selected to journey to the surface and retrieve biological samples. Despite being an unrepentant criminal, Cole's powers of observation and self-sufficiency prove attractive to the scientists present. In exchange for a full pardon they want to send Cole into the past, where he can track down the source of the virus and procure a pure sample. The time-travel mechanism is a little shaky though and he ends up in 1990, instead of 6 years later.

Confused and disorientated, Cole wanders in a daze until picked up by the local Baltimore police. After he attacks several officers, seemingly under the influence of drugs, Cole is diagnosed schizophrenic and detained in an asylum. His psychiatrist, Dr Kathryn Railly (Madeleine Stowe), listens to tales of the oncoming plague without comment, although she has the niggling feeling that Cole's face is familiar. Inside the ward, a fellow patient, Jeffrey Goines (Brad Pitt), becomes friendly with Cole and gives him the guided tour. Eventually Goines is able to help Cole in an escape attempt, though this only becomes successful when Cole is plucked back to 2035. After explaining the mistake made, which meant that he couldn't track down a shadowy group known as The Army of the Twelve Monkeys, Cole is spent spiralling through time again.

Passing through the trenches of World War I, where he gets shot in the leg and meets fellow time-traveller Jose (Jon Seda), Cole eventually winds up in Baltimore in 1996. Through sheer chance Cole finds that Railly is giving a lecture nearby, providing the chance to force her into driving him to Philadelphia (this area seems to be the viral source). While understandably nervous, Railly's professional curiosity outweighs her inner fear. Cole pours out his entire incoherent story of the forthcoming tragedy, conforming to her perception of his mental illness but also littering his testimony with clues which add verisimilitude. At their destination they find walls sprayed with the Twelve Monkeys insignia and vagabonds who hint obliquely at hidden knowledge. Hot on the trail of the virus, Cole drags Railly on the search even though he knows that it's quite impossible to save the humanity of 1996.

Gilliam's characteristic preoccupations with authority, machinery, invasion of privacy and persecution are projected to the fore in Twelve Monkeys. As a man of intense artistic vision Gilliam has few contemporaries in the world of cinema. The environments of Twelve Monkeys are fully realised in astonishing detail, revealing both links which stretch through time and psychological themes that echo throughout. The performances of Willis, Pitt (delicious over-acting) and, to a lesser extent, Stowe are fully equal to such opulent surroundings, although everyone else gets lost within the gorgeous sets. However, as usual, Gilliam reveals an inability to keep a firm grasp on the movie as a whole and lets the entire enterprise drift dangerously in the final half. Such a waning of focus is all the more obvious because Twelve Monkeys begins so directly, relating Cole's tale effortlessly. An elusive, complex and enchanting experience, Twelve Monkeys fails beautifully.

This film was nominated for review by Andy Barrow.

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