REVIEW

Out in Theaters: SELF/LESS

Name: SELF/LESS review
Item: SELF/LESS
Rating: 2.3
Author: Matt Oakes

By Matt Oakes · July 9, 2015

Where to watch: Rent or buy on digital where available (updated October 2026)Rent or buy on Amazon · Buy on Blu-ray/4KAs an Amazon Associate, Silver Screen Riot earns from qualifying purchases.

Tarsem Singh is an tough cookie to crack. On the one hand, he’s hailed as a visionary director; a masterful craftsman of colorful aesthetics and esoteric tone. And yet, his catalog of works is filled with laudable, though often graceless, misfires. From 2000’s J Lo-starrer The Cell to sword ‘n’ sandals CGI-fest Immortals (which seemed little more than 300-lite) and onward to his recent Snow White comedy Mirror Mirror, Singh hardly has one entry in his portfolio to unequivocally celebrate. Nor has he really delivered a true stinker. That trend continues in 2015 with a thinking man’s actioner that forgot the thinking man aspect with Self/Less.

In a year that features Terminator: Genisys [review here] and Taken 3, Self/Less isn’t the king dud of mindless action fare but it does pack a walloping sting of missed opportunity. After Taken 2, we knew not to expect much from Bryan Mills’ third outing while Terminator ran out of creative juices in the 80s. Self/Less, on the other hand, provided a simple and compelling premise – a man changing bodies – only to squander the compelling to pursue the simple.

Within the pages of Singh’s sighably cruise-controlled effort, Ben Kingsley plays Damian, a cantankerous business mogul on the fast track to the bright light. Damian’s got an (unnamed) tumor eating away at his insides, but his mind (and his sense of vengeance) is as sharp as a tack. Not one to squander an opportunity to get the upper hand, our introduction to Damian (whom Kingsley imbues with an over-the-top Brooklyn accent) sees him publicly dressing down a low-level competitor. The scene’s intent is to apparently prove just how not chill this old, owl-y looking fella truly is.

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After discovering a mysterious business card in his pocket, Damian arranges a sit down with Albright (played by a Matthew Goode who barely registers on the interesting scale) where he’s met with a pitch. Albright has devised a way to magnetically shift temporal activity from one brain to another. In effect, he transfers consciousness from an ailing body to one that is fresh, young and not half bad at full-court street b-ball. He spews something about wanting to save the great minds; a fact that seems incongruous with Damian’s dickish mannerisms (I’m pretty sure the only thing he’s great at is being rich and decorating his apartment like a 1970s coke lord).

Long story short, Kingsley turns into Ryan Reynolds and Singh cues up an (admittedly fun) montage of the new Damian slaying the ladies and slamming layups on the basketball court. Complications arise and the tone shifts from that of a cautionary sci-fi tale telling “be careful what you wish for” into a brain-extinguishing click-point-kill actioner.

What’s worse if that none of Singh’s custom visual flair is on display in the faintest of measures. His sets are lavish and decorative – the apparent aftermath of a shopping spree with Goldmember – though such excessive opulence comes across as visually disingenuous and is hardly worth celebrating in its own right.

Singh’s actions sequences are far worse. Each fails to deviate from other, older action beats we’ve seen in action film’s past and considering that Self/Less is a movie that allows its characters to strip out of their skins into newer, more powerful bodies, you’d be amazed how lame-brained some of the material is. Had Self/Less just been a low-broiling sci-fi (it’s not), it would still be mind-boggling how squandered this very simple, very potentially cool this premise is.

Cars collide, punches are thrown, a flamethrower is employed. The film itself remains lukewarm. Throw in the fact that the work going on in post production is equally underwhelming – Dudu Aram and Antonio Pinto‘s score is instantly forgettable and cinematography from Brendan Galvin is amateurish at best – and you have a picture that is a disappointment no matter how you look at it. Shame too because Reynolds, for all his snark and sass, actually put in one of his better performances. Too bad the movie he decides to commit for is so efficiently disposable.

CONCLUSION: What should have been a thinker of a science fiction meditation on self and the concept of technology irrevocably altering that sense of sense, Self/Less turns tail on its high concept premise to become a lifeless action film that features no action scenes worth noting.