Twelve Monkeys

Terry Gilliam, USA, 1995, 129 minutes

It is the year 2035. An plague has devastated the earth, wiping out the majority of the population and driving the few remaining survivors underground. One such, a convict by the name of James Cole (Bruce Willis) “volunteers” to be sent back in time in a bid to locate the source of the plague so that the scientists of his time can change their future. Unfortunately he arrives too early and, having been apprehended and failing to convince the authorities of his story is deemed insane and institutionalised. There he meets Jeffrey Goines (Brad Pitt), the crazy scion of a famous virologist, and psychiatrist Dr Katherine Railly (Madeleine Stowe), with whom he predictably falls in love. Later, having come to believe that the mysterious Army of the Twelve Monkeys with which animal rights type Goines is involved is behind the catastrophe, Jeffrey breaks out and, pursued by the authorities, desperately tries to save the world...

Overtly drawing its inspiration from by Chris Marker's chilling photo roman La Jetee with excursions into Vertigo territory by way of Sans Soleil, Terry Gilliam's 1997 time-travel adventure, scripted by David and Janet Peoples, still stands as one of the high points of contemporary science-fiction cinema, intelligently exploring the paradoxes of time travel with side excursions into such themes as mental illness (Cole as sane man in an insane world, just one more ranting prophet of doom) the nature of reality, animal rights (Cole as human guinea pig whose situation is little better than those of the lab and other animals Goines would liberate), technology and technocracy and so on.

True, purists will complain that it lacks the icy formal beauty of its model and panders to the mainstream demographic too much through the presence of stars Willis and Pitt – both delivering fine performances that remind one they can also act when they choose to do so, even if Pitt is perhaps a bit too stereotypically wild and crazy guy for my liking – directorial overstatement and a more optimistic resolution (“I'm in insurance,” indeed), but the truth is that Twelve Monkeys also has the capacity to reach, entertain and most importantly mentally stimulate audiences beyond the narrow reach of the rive gauche.

Review by Michel Gentil
Written for EUFS Programme Autumn 2007