re:mote voices

Title: Heaven
Cast: Martin Donovan, Danny Edwards, Joanna Going, Patrick Malahide, Richard Schiff
Director: Scott Reynolds

Heaven is transvestite stripper, sponsored by a club owner who has taken her off the street, when he has found out that she is capable of precognition. However Heaven sees that one of the club owners friends will help her in the future, so she advises him how to win a card game that she has scene. This sets up a convoluted series of events. The club owner’s friend is played by Martin Donovan (The Amateur, The Opposite of Sex), he is architect with a gambling problem, who looks like he is about to lose his son to his estranged wife. But with Heaven’s prodding he is also pulled into the whole thing with the club owner, who is annoyed at having lost card games that Heaven should have warned him about, and is also planning some criminal activities with a couple of thugs who Heaven and Donovan have had unfortunate run clashes with.

As a film this is a curious piece, building up the various threads into a layered result, that keeps tensions high. The narrative is played around with, certain things seen in advance thanks to Heaven’s abilities, though it isn’t always clear that is what is going on, which creates another level of false tension, to keep the viewer guessing. The screen play seems to have been written by Chad Taylor, who from the credits for New Zealand casting, I am assuming is the New Zealand based author, who was responsible for the convoluted thriller Electric, which I read in the last few months.