Just what I expected

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

I liked the subject matter of this movie: some adventurous young scientists so curious to find out what happens after death they're willing to give it a try and risk their own lives and die for a few minutes ...it's a well made movie too, technically speaking ... exploring morals and human conscience are also among the good aspects of this movie, although not quite deeply exploredm while the director does waste viewer's time by repeating certain scenes although in slightly different ways ...but then trying to prove God exists via a topic that has very little to do with the concept of God and rather related to religion and spirituality, is what made me give it 1 star only ... for the sake of entertainment alone ...the atheist doc doesn't know what atheism is all about and maybe that's why he ends up believing in God, even apologizing 'the man' for having interfered with affairs he -now- believes are only God's expertise ... (how 'bout the university this young doc is studying medicine in gives God a PhD or something in theology perhaps?)i don't say this movie is not worth seeing but if you're a hardcore atheist (i'm not) you may as well not quite like this movie's 'religious message' ...

As the remake is coming out this week, I want to see how the original did, and I am not disappointed. This movie is a thriller without gore. The idea of forcing near death experience is intriguing and the stories around the characters are interesting. But what made it super special is that it featured the best stars at the time -- Julia Robert, Kevin Bacon, Kiefer, Oliver Plat and William Bacon, all together in one movie. And all the stars delivered their great performances. As for the remake, the bad news is it is very hard for it to surpass the original as the latter set such a high standard. But the good news is we can always have the original to be appreciated, in case the remake is a flop.

I mainly found out about this film because of it being joked about in one of the EE Kevin Bacon adverts, I knew it was something to do with stopping your heart or dying, so I was certainly interested in watching it, directed by Joel Schumacher (Falling Down, Batman Forever, Phone Booth). Basically medical school student Nelson Wright (Kiefer Sutherland) is fascinated, having spoken to various people who had near death experiences, e.g. during childbirth, during an operation, to discover what lies beyond death. Nelson convinces four of his classmates: Dr. Joe Hurley (William Baldwin), David Labraccio (Kevin Bacon), Randall "Randy" Steckle (Eraser's Oliver Platt) and Dr. Rachel Mannus (Julia Roberts), to help him experiment. Nelson has his heart stopped, he flatlines for one minute, before his classmates resuscitate him, while "dead" he experienced a sort of afterlife, which included strange visions, of a boy he bullied, all he says is that he cannot describe what happened, but something does exist. With the experiment a success, the other four students one by one follow this daring feat, including extending the flatlining an extra minute each, they too have strange visions of an afterlife. Joe flatlines next, he experiences an erotic afterlife, he agrees with Nelson that something does exist, and David is third to flatline, he sees a vision of a black girl he bullied in school. The three men start to experience hallucinations related to their afterlife visions, Nelson ends up beaten up, Joe is haunted by home videos of women he slept with and secretly recorded, David sees the little black girl who verbally taunts him like he did to her. Rachel decides she wishes to go ahead with the experiment, David tries to stop her from having the same fate, but he is too late, Rachel nearly dies permanently during a power cut, the defibrillator paddles do not work, but she is revived, she too is haunted by visions, with the memory of her father committing suicide when she was young. They may have proved a theory with the experiment, but the three men talk to each other and reveal their harrowing experiences, David decides to put his visions to a stop, he finds the black girl now grown up, Winnie Hicks (Kimberly Scott), he apologises to her, she accepts, and he feels a weight has been lifted. David finds Nelson beating himself, he thinks it is the boy he bullied grown up, Billy Mahoney (Joshua Rudoy), doing it, meanwhile Joe's fiancée Anne Coldren (Hope Davis) breaks up with him, after discovering his videos with other women, his visions stop after she leaves, and Rachel seeks comfort with David, they make love, while Nelson in a graveyard reveals to Randy and Joe that he killed Billy Mahoney as a child, he then leaves them stranded. David leaves Rachel in order to rescue Joe and Randy, while alone Rachel has a vision of her father (Benjamin Mouton), he apologises to her, her guilt over his death is lifted when she discovers he was addicted to heroin. Nelson calls Rachel saying he needs to flatline again in order to make amends, he apologises for involving her and the others in the stupid plan, he has been dead for nine minutes when the other three join her and race to save him. In the afterlife Nelson dies from being stoned by the boy he bullied, his friends cannot revive him, they are about to give up, but David gives him one last shock and he is brought back, Nelson says "Today wasn't a good day to die", it is unclear if they tell anyone about their experiments. Also starring Aeryk Egan as Young Nelson, Kesha Reed as Young Winnie, Jim Ortlieb as Uncle Dave, John Joseph Duda as Young David, Afram Bill Williams as Ben Hicks, Deborah Thompson Duda as Terry, Elinore O'Connell as Rachel's Mother and Sanna Vraa as Bridget. The cast all do their parts fine, the concept is certainly interested, the question of what happens after you die is definitely one scientists are still curious to know the answer to, unfortunately the afterlife stuff and haunting visions the characters have are clichéd, it is supposed to be chilling with all the supernatural strangeness, but I just felt a little bored, I can't see myself watching this sort of film again, a weird but bearable I suppose science-fiction psychological thriller. It was nominated the Oscar for Best Effects, Sound Effects Editing. Okay!

FLATLINERS is one of those films remembered by a generation for bringing together a bunch of stars, in their early years, all of whom would become famous after time. Kiefer Sutherland, of course, teamed up with Joel Schumacher previously on THE LOST BOYS and nowadays is best known for his work in the television series 24. Julia Roberts made the double-whammy of this and PRETTY WOMAN, both in 1990, and secured her success as an A-list actress. Oliver Platt has carved out a niche in 'smaller' movies over the years, William Baldwin is one of the popular Baldwin brothers and Kevin Bacon, well, he's always been weird, ever since he was in Friday THE 13TH, and his role here is no exception. The cast was a mixed bag for me. I hated Baldwin's womaniser, despised Platt's blatant role as the comic relief, and found myself as ambivalent to Julia Roberts as ever. But Bacon's a secure anchor for the other actors, and Sutherland redefines 'intense' with his turn here.The idea of a group of medical students giving themselves 'near death' experiences to see whether there's an afterlife is a good one, a nice science-fiction premise. But what impressed me most was that, halfway through, the story changes track totally, becoming a reflection on the human condition as themes of guilt, sin, redemption, and atonement are dealt with in turn. I was surprised how dark this film actually was, with lots of encounters with sinister figures and weird stuff going on; it's actually far scarier than many more 'obvious' horrors from the same period. Scenes of the students struggling to resuscitate their friends are pulse-pounding and there are even one or two moving bits (Roberts' reunion, for instance). Schumacher's stylised direction, stuck entirely in the 1980s, is a detraction, but cinematographer Jan De Bont helms some good scenes and, while I don't consider this a classic, it is an interesting experience and for the most part an effective one.