My Review of "K-Pax"

K-Pax is a movie that came out way back in 2001. I remembered the trailers for this movie and wasn't interested in it at all. Of course, I was really young back then and this type of movie didn't interest me. It was an exploration of character and philosophy and I was into action movies at the time. Now in 2020 I have the patience and maturity to watch such a movie and it wasn't bad.

The movie starts out in a train station where a woman gets mugged. A man comes out of nowhere to her aid and is mistaken for her attacker at first. Upon further questioning of this mysterious man they realize that he may not be quite right in the head. He claimed his name was Prot and he had come from a different planet called K-Pax. Seeing as he looks like a regular human being a lot of people are more inclined to think that he's insane.

Prot is then transferred to a mental institution and there he meets Dr. Mark Powell. Mark is a major skeptic and is absolutely fascinated with Prot's story. He really wants to get down to seeing who he really is.

The problem with Mark's analysis of Prot is that Prot is pretty convincing with his story. He is able to prove what solar system he's from and other crazy things. A lot of people even start believing that Prot is the real deal and want to learn more about Prot and what he can do for everyone.

In a way Prot is there to help out not only the patients in the facility but also Mark. Mark's family life hasn't been the best because he's prioritized work over his family and it's really put a huge strain on a lot of his life without him knowing.

Still this is quite an odd concept for a movie but begs the question what if people in mental wards are telling the truth. It's our own belief that they're insane and we're not willing to listen to reason because we're stuck in our own ways. We will often try to further victimize these people by telling them what they should be thinking or what they should be doing in their lives.

Watching this movie made me have a newfound appreciation for listening to people's stories because they might actually be telling you something that you should be listening to. I also have to watch what I say sometimes because I might be forcing my own opinions and thoughts into someone else trying to change their minds of their own convictions.

So Prot had a lot of layers to him. He gives the audience some internal discussions and also in the movie he gives the patients some hope in their condition. A lot of the time when people are institutionalized they lose hope in rehabilitation but he gives people hope in the institution. Something as simple as seeing a blue bird can brighten hope for a whole group of people that have lost hope.

A lot of this movie involved a lot of people being in disbelief because of the actions of Prot. He wins a lot of their affection. The hardest person to convince is Mark. Mark starts to question his methods as Prot continuously dispel certain methods to disprove he's an alien.

The ending is a nice compromise of appeasing all sorts of audiences. I can see how half of the audience wants Prot to be real and half of them want him to be fake. There's a certain level of ambitiousness in this ending that will allow the viewer to think what they want to think.

Overall, I enjoyed this movie from start to finish. I'm just glad that I've finally gained enough maturity and patience to watch these movies now to appreciate the movies that I've missed out in the past. It's pretty fun because there's a lot of these types of movies in the past that I've missed out and just now appreciating them for the first time and understanding the context of the time. I have to give this movie a 7 out of 10. It was an enjoyable movie but I don't know if I'd go out and watch it again. There is a little cheesiness to it that I can't really get over.