Steve (Anthony Mackie) and Dennis (Jamie Dornan), two paramedics and best friends, think they've seen it all while making the rounds in their ambulance. They had no idea how personal, and strange, it could get.
On the surface, this movie is about designer drugs; people skirting the law on a technicality to get high. It ends in terrible consequences. The fact that the writers took this to an almost absurd extreme doesn't change that. Dig deeper though, and this movie is about connection, and sacrifice for your chosen "family".
Semi-spoilers ahead.
I will warn you, there is a scene where a dog doesn't exactly die, but is lost. I could feel it coming, and blubbered like a baby when it finally happened. If this is something that will affect your enjoyment of this film, you've been warned.
Ultimately, this is a time travel film. A new designer drug, Synchronic, disconnects the user from linear time for seven minutes. What time you travel to depends on precise geographical location when the drug kicks in. The paramedics are just cleaning up the aftermath without thinking too much about it until Dennis' teenage daughter, Brianna (Ally Ioannides) disappears from a friend's roof.
Steve slowly starts to pick up on the drug's strange effects, and having received a terrible diagnosis from his doctor, feels he has nothing to lose by experimenting with the pharmaceutical in an attempt to track down and rescue his friend's daughter.
There are some side stories that add a little flavor, such as the story of the chemist who created the drug, and the effects Brianna's disappearance has on Dennis' marriage, but neither were as important as Dennis' story of he and Steve taking a call during hurricane Katrina, and Steve coming upon the scene of his parents' and little sister's coffins displaced by storm waters. You see flashes of it throughout the film, but it isn't explained until near the end. The story illustrates Steve's character in a way that builds on why he makes his choices in the end.
The movie itself is sometimes non-linear. Flashbacks are not always precisely "marked" as such so that you recognize them immediately. Dennis especially is affected by this, when he encounters places and objects that remind him of his missing child. It lends to the surreal quality of the film which I enjoyed.
Since I am a survivor of Hurricane Katrina, and have had a terrible medical diagnosis of my own, this movie hit me very hard. I'm not sure I would have reacted as strongly to the emotional beats if I had been someone else.
Yet even with all that, the ending was unsatisfying and a bit of an eye-roll inducer. It felt like the movie's "rules" weren't adhered to, making the ending ultimately fall flat.
I didn't knit a project during this film, as I was pressed for time and didn't want to spend the beginning distracted by setting up a new project. There was one "holy crap" moment, and a few spots where spoken numbers could screw up project counts, but overall this would be an excellent movie to watch while making or crafting.
Ultimately, if you're a fan of the time travel genre, this is a decent entry. It is not a light-hearted film though, and deals with some heavy subjects. It's thought provoking, and has some very striking visuals. I recommend it, but be prepared to feel introspective and sad when it's done. Four out of Five stars.
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