K-Pax: Movie, DVD Review

Directed by Iain Softley, written by Charles Leavitt, based on the novel by Gene Brewer, 120 minutes, rated PG-13.

(Originally published 2001)

Iaian Softley's sci-fi drama "K-Pax" works as well as it does because of its two male leads--Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges--who keep the story grounded during those moments when it threatens to fly away.

The film is about a mental patient named Prot (Spacey) who may or may not be from another planet. That's its mystery, on which everything is staked.

It's a mix of other movies, from "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" to "Starman." But its true inspiration is the film it mirrors so closely: Eliseo Subiela's 1986 movie "Man Facing Southeast," which also followed a psychiatrist's relationship with a man who claims to be from another world. In Softley's film that otherworld is K-Pax, which may sound like a potent laxative, but which is actually a planet 1,000 light years from Earth. Indeed, it's from K-Pax that Prot (rhymes with float) allegedly hails.

But is he from another planet? After mysteriously appearing in Grand Central Station in a sudden burst of light, it would seem so. But when Prot fails to convince authorities that he's from far, far away, it’s up to Dr. Mark Powell (Bridges) to discern the truth.

"K-Pax" is of the life-affirming genre, which means that a good deal of its story is focused on how Prot's snappy, mischievous charm has the power to lift and change lives. He certainly does so for Powell, whose marriage is a wreck, but also for his fellow mental patients, a colorful group of caricatures who are like teddy bears on Thorazine.

The film never overcomes its insistence that the mentally ill are the equivalent of sheep in a petting zoo, an idea that irritates. But it's also true that big chunks of the movie work, especially those scenes Spacey shares with Bridges, which are so strong, they punch the material into a realm it wouldn't have reached without them.

Grade: B-