THE AISLE SEAT - "FALLEN"

by Mike McGranaghan

One of the most insidious things about evil is that you never really know where it will emerge. Sometimes even the most normal, decent-seeming people can exhibit traits of it: the mild-mannered neighbor who secretly beats his wife and children, the over-stressed employee who "snaps" and opens fire on his co-workers, the successful person who - in a moment of passion - takes a life. Evil, it seems, can potentially manifest itself in anyone. That idea is the central one behind Fallen, a new supernatural thriller that poses some interesting questions on the nature of evil, but offers too few genuine chills.

Denzel Washington plays detective John Hobbes, a top-rank cop whose work has put a serial killer (Elias Koteas) behind bars. Just prior to the man's execution, Hobbes visits him. For someone about to be gassed, the killer seems unusually carefree; he keeps spouting nonsense about how he isn't really going to die. When he is finally strapped into the chair, he shows no remorse or fear. Instead, he launches into a few bars of an old Rolling Stones song, "Time is on My Side." And just as the killer breathes his last gasp, an evil spirit exits his body and takes possession of another.

That spirit, which we come to learn is named Azazel, can pass from body to body by a mere touch. Azazel begins inhabiting the bodies of other people, and when it takes over a new body, it kills the person it lived in before (this plot detail is inexplicably dropped half-way through the film). It also carefully loads these murders with circumstantial evidence to give the impression that Hobbes is committing copycat killings. Hobbes, meanwhile, figures out what's going on with the help of a theology professor who has a very personal relationship to Azazel. It is up to Hobbes to battle the demon and prove his innocence to his doubting superior officer (Donald Sutherland) and partner (John Goodman).

Fallen has a lot of talented people behind it. Aside from Washington and the rest of the cast, it boasts a script from Nicholas Kazan (Reversal of Fortune) and direction from Gregory Hoblit (NYPD Blue, Primal Fear). With such great people working together, you can reasonably expect Fallen to be a very scary movie. And indeed, it does have a handful of creepy moments. The best of these is the one where Azazel switches host bodies rapidly on a city street while Hobbes watches and tries to figure out where it is.

However, the movie seems to be missing a much-needed sense of dread. Films like Seven (which I admit hating with a passion) and Kiss the Girls put the audience on edge with ever-increasing fear that something awful was going to happen. Fallen, in an admirable attempt to avoid gratuitous violence, never quite captures that fear. I would assume that a demonic spirit that goes around killing people would be a calamitous event, but the film scarcely conveys the imminent danger of its premise. Fallen should be a whole lot scarier than it is.

I also had problems with some of the movie's plotting. It wavers between being very inventive and very predictable. For example, there is a terrific plot twist that doesn't reveal itself until the film's final minute. I was genuinely stunned by the revelation, and I admired the film for fooling me so cleverly. On the other hand, more than a few elements are standard. One character might as well just be named "Dead Meat," for he has no purpose other than to die in such a way that it seriously impacts Hobbes.

Certain moments seem to have been manufactured simply so that the plot can progress. Late in the film, Hobbes - having discovered a secret word that Azazel is spelling out for him - is (coincidentally) sitting next to a nun on a bus. He leans over to ask the nun if the word means anything to her. Now, the word in question has great Biblical connotations, and any nun could give you a lengthy dissertation on the word and its relevance to Christianity. But instead of doing that, the nun only gives Hobbes the exact piece of information he needs to begin solving the mystery. It's a moment that rings incredibly false, as though the story is just trying to phone in an easy resolution to the predicament.

I saw Fallen on a gloomy afternoon. It is the kind of movie that is perfect for gloomy afternoons when there is absolutely nothing else to do and you just want to think about something else for a while. On that level, it kept me involved. Washington is good, as always, and I enjoyed the parts that do create a sense of eerie uncertainty. But would I recommend Fallen? Probably not. Although by no means a bad film, it never achieves anything special. There are some interesting elements, but they don't add up to a meaningful whole. Fallen aims to be a classy thriller, but it never gets under your skin the way it should.

( 1/2 out of four)

Fallen is rated R for violence and profanity. The running time is 2 hours.