Forensic scientist Phil D'Amato (Jay Kensinger) recieves a call from a
Lauren Goldring (Breann Beal), who claims her husband has gone missing
under mysterious circumstances, but insists it's not a case for the
missing persons department but for a forensic with an interest in quantum
physics - because you know, her husband was a quantum physicist working on
a project investigating quantum signalling, which would be the first step
towards time travel. D'Amato thinks the woman is overreacting concerning
the disappearance of her husband, but he listens to her. Then her husband
turns up the victim of a drive-by shooting, in other words an completely
random act of violence - and that should be that, right? Not in the eyes
of Lauren though, who insists there was another reason for his death. Now
D'Amato knows she is overreacting - until she turns up the very next day. D'Amato
turns to a journalist friend of his (Evan Hunt), who tells him that not
only Lauren's husband but most of the scientists involved with the project
have died one way or another, and it might all be caused by ... the
universe - inasmuch as every sort of time travelling would alter history
and therefore cause a paradox, which simply must not happen, which is why
chronology has to be protected, which is why all those involved with the
project might have to die. But why didn't all of them yet, and is there a
way to save them? On his way home, D'Amato has a near-fatal car
accident, and when he comes to and calls his journalist friend, he learns
his friend has died. So now the universe is after him - or is it? D'Amato
tries to reach one of the two surviving scientists involved in the
project, but he blocks off all questions and tries to distance himself
from the project as much as possible - not entirely convincingly though.
D'Amato wants to publish his findings on the internet, but then he has a
near-fatal heart-attack, and only comes to again thanks to Jennifer
Fenwick (Kaite McGrew), now the last surviving scientist on the project
(the man D'Amato has talked to has killed himself soon afterwards). The
two of them put their minds together and come up with an explanation why
the universe hasn't killed them yet as well: Because they did not
seriously want to publish anything yet (though D'Amato came close twice
and was almost killed on both occasions). Now there's a problem of course:
The findings are there no matter what, so how to keep them from being
published - to which D'Amato has a brilliant idea: Since Jennifer Fenwick
is the only one involved with the project still alive, she will be able to
give the findings a whole different spin, send other scientists off into a
whole bunch of directions other than time travel, let them lose themselves
in a whole different set of ideas maybe forever ... This seems to work,
as the universe seems to reward D'Amato and Jennifer by letting them fall
in love with each other, or is this just a natural reaction? Plus, why
does it allow D'Amato to forget a tape chronicling his findings, to be
found by someone else for sure? Interesting sci-fi-whodunnit
that takes very big, scientific-sounding ideas and brings them down to a
level where they no longer sound brain heavy but actually work pretty well
as the driving force of a genre story - which doesn't mean there aren't
still twists and turns aplenty. The directorial effort of this film is
solid and subtle. Sure, it cannot always obscure its low budget (but hey,
this was started as a students project), but then again filling the film
with CGI-effects (which almost suggests itself, regarding the subject
matter) would have only destroyed the story. In all, a pretty nice
effort - and by the way, the ending comes off as way more ironic than I
have made it to be in my synopsis. By the way, if you want to
see the film, just follow this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrRiFZ9rGtg
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