Chain Reaction (1996)

Starring: Keanu Reeves, Morgan Freeman, Rachel Weisz, Fred Ward, Brian Cox, Kevin Dunn, and Tzi Ma, with a cameo from Michael Shannon
Grade: C+

We got some classic Keanu here. 

Summary

In Chicago, Dr. Alistair Barkley (Nicholas Rudall) does a presentation of his “Hydrogen Energy Project” he is captaining which is using the hydrogen from water to make clean energy. As he talks, we see one of his employees, machinist Eddie Kasalivich (Reeves), go to work at the University of Chicago with a team of scientists, including Paul Shannon (Freeman) and physicist Lily Sinclair (Weisz). At work, Alistair tells Paul the good news in which they sustained fusion for 4.6 milliseconds. They do a test of the machine, but it fails. That night, Eddie does a test on a smaller object after some finagling, and it works. Immediately following this, he calls Alistair to tell him. The next day, they do another test on the actual machine, and everything runs smoothly. As everyone celebrates, Alistair argues with Paul in private because Paul wants to keep it a secret for now, but Alistair wants to release the info to the world for free. They are interrupted to take a picture with everyone. Following the party, Eddie sees Lily is drunk and the battery on her car is dead. Since he doesn’t want her to freeze on his motorcycle (because for some reason this maniac is driving a motorcycle in the Chicago wintertime), he goes on a bus with her and takes her back to her place which is on the third floor of Alistair’s. At the same time, Alistair and project manager Dr. Lu Chen (Ma) work on uploading their info to the internet. They are then interrupted by a group entering the facility.

Eddie goes back to the University of Chicago to pick up his bike, but he hears an alarm go off. He runs inside to see Alistair murdered and Chen nowhere to be found. Seeing that the place is about to fall apart, Eddie drives his bike directly out of the building and as far down the road as possible. Shortly after, the entire facility explodes. As we see from the group of bad guys that entered, the whole thing was set up. Someone didn’t want this information leaked.

The explosion decimates the area, affecting buildings and the landscape for “eight city blocks”. Eddie calls and tells Paul that night.

The next morning, everyone is investigating the site for foul play with FBI Agent Leon Ford (Ward) leading the charge. At FBI Headquarters in Chicago, the agents ask several researchers and scientists on the team questions. Paul tells them everyone would be interested in this project because of how much the information is worth, and one guy talks about how Eddie was the last guy he saw there. Eddie is questioned by Ford’s assistant Agent Doyle (Dunn) about why he went back that night, and at the same time, Paul and Lily are asked about their working relationships with Alistair and Dr. Chen. When the three go back to the apartment, they see the FBI is going through everyone’s stuff, so Lily decides to stay at Eddie’s place. On the news, they see Chen is outed as missing, but he’s also considered a suspect. While seeing this on the television, Lily gets a fax from “Chen”, asking for her to meet him at the rendezvous at Shanghai, China with the rest of the information. However, based off how the fax is written, Lily realizes this isn’t Chen. She’s in the process of being framed. Confused at what’s going on, Eddie leaves with her to find out more information. The FBI busts into Paul’s office, with Agent Ford and Doyle pointing out how they read Eddie’s file, and they saw how he was previously kicked out of school for an accident that caused minor structural damage to a building. Paul defends Eddie and talks about how it was a project failure and there’s no connection. However, Ford is quick to note that there is a connection, the CIA told him Chen might be involved in espionage, and they are very aware of Lily receiving the fax to come to Shanghai.

On the walk home, Eddie and Lily see cops outside of Eddie’s apartment, so they run away. Doyle and the FBI search the apartment and along with finding things that could possibly tie Eddie to these conspiracies they’re cooking up, they also find a package of $250,000 in cash and a transmitter. Eddie and Lily confront Paul in a parking garage, but he asks Eddie what the money was for. Eddie has no idea. It was planted there and so was the transmitter Paul was asking about. After Lily tells Paul the fax wasn’t from Chen, he believes them and suggests they turn themselves in because the FBI will know they’re innocent. They refuse because they still feel unsafe, with Eddie deciding they will wait at former colleague Maggie’s (Joanna Cassidy) place while Paul agrees to talk with his lawyer to work things out for them. He gives them some money and tells them to wait for his call. The FBI discuss Paul and how he used to work at the Defense Advanced Research Project Administration for three years under Ronald Reagen, meaning there’s more to him than meets the eye. At a restaurant, Eddie tells Lily about how him and Maggie used to work together, and they’ll take a train that night to see her. Just then, they are interrupted by a news report. The FBI announces that material witness warrants have been issued for Dr. Chen, Eddie, and Lily. Immediately, they split up and agree to meet at the train station. Soon after, Eddie is spotted, and a chase ensues on Michigan Avenue. Thankfully, he’s able to elude them and join Lily on the train just in time. Sometime after, they make it to Maggie.

This grants them a safe house momentarily, but the entire country is still after them.

Now, they have to figure out a way to clear their name, find whoever put them in this position in the first place, and stop these unknown people before they achieve their much bigger plan of stealing the hydrogen project information.

My Thoughts:

Chain Reaction isn’t changing the game in the action genre. Admittedly, I wasn’t expecting anything crazy either, but the cast had me interested.

Conspiracies, the government, Keanu Reeves, and Morgan Freeman? Okay, you may have piqued my interest.

Well, they tricked me. All in all, there’s some entertaining action and a story revolving around a solution to clean energy being stolen and people getting killed over it (which can be exciting), but there’s so many missteps that it’s barely above average. Regarding the screenplay, it seems to be more layered than it actually is. It tries to throw in a few twists to make things seem more intricate, but I assure you, you will not care nearly as much as the screenwriter intended.

The story is centered around Eddie and Lily and their race against time, but this is where the trouble began. I wasn’t feeling the chemistry between Reeves and Rachel Weisz. They don’t seem like that close of friends to begin with (they’re more work friends if anything), and they don’t tease a romantic partnership as much as they should. The story was desperately calling for it too. It would’ve helped immensely, but it looked like we were so focused on the twists and turns of Morgan Freeman’s Paul Shannon that it didn’t seem like the screenplay could juggle these many plotlines at once. It barely handled the main one. Even after watching the movie through and through, I still don’t feel like I know the working relationship between Shannon and Lyman (Cox). I don’t know how it started, I don’t understand the endgame, and I really don’t know much about Lyman at all. Not enough is explained for me to really care about this side of the equation. I guess we’re relying on us knowing Lyman is evil because Brian Cox has a penchant for playing asshole bad guys, but what we’re given doesn’t feel nearly enough for me to care. Additionally, I don’t know if I’m supposed to like or dislike the Shannon character because of the ambiguousness of it all and how little insight we are given on his true mission. I guess I’m supposed to like him because he’s still Morgan Freeman, but this didn’t work for me. The ending regarding his character pissed me off. It didn’t feel right and also felt like an unnecessary twist to an already frustrating narrative.

I will admit that Freeman pulled off the fedora/cigar combo particularly well. That was an underrated look. It made his character a lot more memorable than it had any business being.

Usually, I can get past certain details regarding realism. I understand we’re watching a movie after all, but Eddie getting by in the Chicago winter by just wearing a flannel is maddening. He doesn’t don a coat, hat, gloves, or anything whatsoever. This tells me he’s insane, or director Andrew Davis didn’t feel like this detail was important enough. I’m also supposed to believe he rides a motorcycle during this time of the year? Is he out of his fucking mind?! You can be a native of Chicago and be used to the cold, but there’s not a shot in hell anyone would do this. At one point, him and Lily have to travel through a river, and she almost dies of hypothermia because of her lack of winterwear even though she still had a hat and coat on for most of the movie. Somehow though, Eddie is completely fine! How the fuck does this make sense? She lives in Chicago too, so either her and Eddie have to both be used to the weather to a certain degree, or Eddie is superhuman. Even if Eddie was the dipshit in high school that wore shorts year-round, he still has to eventually react to the cold at some point, whether it be in the hundred chase scenes he’s involved in or this specific river scene.

Going along with the trouble of realism, how in the hell do they have so much time to get chased around by several people and cause chaos in the Museum of Science and Industry without security stepping in at any point? It’s as if there’s not a single guard in sight!

If you’re from the Chicagoland area, one major positive is the number of cool location shots of famous places around the area, especially in the chases.

The third act on the C-Systems Research Facility was an exciting and explosive ending that saved the film from getting any worse, but I just can’t help but think the rest of the story was relatively uneventful. Yes, there’s stuff that happens, but I just didn’t care enough to really delve deep into the story and truly be attached. Shannon doesn’t give us enough until late, the Maggie scenes looked like they were going to be much bigger, but not much happens other than a phone call. When the story slowed down to when you think something’s going to happen with Eddie and Lily, it doesn’t, and they just get chased again. I will give credit to Fred Ward who managed to make his one-note character of Agent Leon Ford more than what the script called for, but he was still underutilized. Ford could’ve had a much bigger role in the story and action had they seen what Fred Ward was going to bring to the table. He was capable of much more.

Chain Reaction is a run-of-the-mill action movie with glimpses of solid entertainment. The action and chase sequences are good, and Keanu and Morgan Freeman do as good as they can with what’s given, but the movie as a whole is pretty forgettable.