Starring:
Keanu Reeves
Morgan Freeman
Plot summary: Nuclear physicist Keanu discovers cold fusion and is pursued by black helicopters for 90 minutes.
The best movies are ones that provoke questions. Like what if shining a laser into a tank of water while vibrating it with a high frequency sound could split the bonds and produce pure hydrogen? What if Keanu Reeves was the only man who knew how it worked? What if the CIA infiltrated and sabotaged energy research in order to maintain geopolitical stability? Why does the theme song sound just like the theme from Top Gun? These questions and many more are answered by director Andrew Davis.
Keanu is at his best when he is confused (The Matrix, Much Ado About Nothing) or traveling at great speed (Speed), which is why having Andrew Davis direct is such a good choice, being the mastermind behind The Fugitive, a film centered on Harrison Ford running away from Tommy Lee Jones. Jumping at the chance to work with Keanu, Mr. Davis sets out to make the great Keanu Running Movie.
The first stroke of genius was to cast Morgan Freeman as the foundation head funding the research project. This was the first known use of the Pair Keanu up with an Accomplished African-American Actor (PKAAAA) System, later followed to the letter using Laurence Fishburne in The Matrix and Al Pacino in The Replacements.
You might ask when you hear that Keanu unleashes limitless free energy from ordinary drinking water, "Keanu Reeves as a nuclear physicist? You have got to be kidding me. How is this potted plant supposed to be believable as a physicist?" Actually, he does not portray a physicist, rather Eddie Kasalivich, a simple machinist at the University of Chicago. Granted, he is a simple machinist with a working prototype of the free energy machine on his workbench. One day, while shining the laser beam into the water tank, he realizes that while his lathe is carving a new part, the water starts spontaneously generating hydrogen. Luckily, he keeps a synthesizer next to his workbench, and sampling his lathe, Keanu plays the one note for minutes on end taking data, becoming the Yanni of energy research.
Thus, Keanu discovers how to end world conflict by drowning the earth with free energy using only a laser, a tank of water, and a Casio keyboard. The night of the big discovery, after the drunken scientists leave, the head of the project Dr. Alistair Barkley (Nicholas Rudall, a professor at the University of Chicago making a cameo as a professor at the University of Chicago) starts to send the data to scientists worldwide. Being a professional director, Andrew Davis knows that ending conflict with free energy for all makes a good Nobel Prize, but a lousy movie. Instead, Keanu finds himself in a nightmarish black-ops conspiracy, the unfortunate fate of a full 13% of energy researchers in America.
Before Dr. Barkley can send the data, men in an unmarked van storm the building, kill him, and set the free energy machine on an unstable runaway course by replacing Keanu's frequencies with Metallica's Fade To Black. Keanu comes back to the lab after dropping off Dr. Lily Sinclair (Rachel Weisz of The Mummy fame) in order to make sure the drunken scientist got home all right and lay a foundation for future romantic interest. Keanu arrives to find his mentor suffocated with a plastic bag and the free energy machine glowing and shaking uncontrollably. Being a simple machinist, he spends a few minutes trying CPR before running out and hopping on his motorbike. The tank of water glows even brighter, eventually exploding in a mushroom cloud and destroying eight blocks of Chicago. A nuclear explosion generated by a tank of water produces no ordinary fireball, not like the kind action movie stars can outrun on foot. Luckily, Keanu has a moped.
Rather than distract the audience from enjoying Keanu run with a mystery, Andrew Davis makes it clear from the outset that Morgan Freeman, playing the funding god Paul Shannon, is evil. He argues with Dr. Barkley, he glowers in every scene, and when the team succeeds he is visibly annoyed. Once bad things start happening, the audience knows that the conspiracy goes right up to Morgan, with maybe only Dick Cheney above him. This allows everyone to relax and devote all their attention to Keanu running.
The black ops conspirators plant a bundle of cash in Keanu's apartment to frame him, along with a burst transmitter that could be used to send the data to the Red Chinese, three copies of Chairman Mao's Little Red Book, and a draft manuscript entitled "How I Betrayed My Country to the Red Chinese." With Dr. Lily also subtly implicated in the nuclear explosion, they find themselves on the run like Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen, except Dr. Lily is English and Keanu can't enunciate.
The police and FBI are convinced by the mountain of evidence, so they pursue the two inside and out of the greater Chicago metro area. Keanu, being but a simple machinist, is not used to being on the run, so at various points tries to evade the Federalis by running up a drawbridge (showing a strong Blues Brothers influence, but forgetting the vital automobile) and stealing a hovercraft to pilot across a frozen lake (not the most low profile escape route). The two are never captured. A more cynical viewer might suggest that Keanu is protected by a force from on high. And he is.
The CIA, which has been secretly been funding the project through Morgan Freeman, framed Keanu and Dr. Lily, and then follows them to insure that they remain uncaptured by the law. They need Keanu alive because they need him to tell them the magic frequencies. Apparently no one wrote them down before nuking the lab.
In no particular order, Dr. Lily succumbs to hypothermia, falls for the charismatic and charming Keanu, and is captured by the CIA. Keanu remains free by fighting off four CIA spooks in a museum using a plaster bone from a Neanderthal display. Obligated by chase movie conventions to save the damsel in distress, he locates the top secret CIA lab, breaks in, and fixes their magic water reactor.
This is where Keanu truly captures the essence of his character. He is just a machinist; all he understands is maintenance. James Bond would never break into the hollowed out volcano hideout and do minor structural repairs, but Keanu is not James Bond, and God willing, never will be. Usually fixing the evil-doers' reactor is a tactical mistake, but Keanu is crafty. Right before his showdown with the evil CIA energy researchers he faxes all of the data to the FBI offices and sabotages the control mechanism he fixed.
With the runaway reaction mounting, the CIA spooks don't have enough time to shoot Keanu and Dr. Lily in the head, leaving them behind to perish in the explosion. By chance they find another way out, and Keanu helps Dr. Lily out of the tunnel system just in time. Keanu, on the other hand, is ejected from the tunnel forcibly by the explosion, becoming the first man to survive two nuclear blasts in one movie, breaking the previous record of one by Glenn Langan in The Amazing Colossal Man.
And as we fade out on the scene, one simple machinist has made the world safe for love at the same time he puts Big Oil, Big Coal, and even Big Solar out of business using a tank of water, a laser, and a Casio. I would have to say that Chain Reaction is the greatest movie I have ever seen.
