K - PAX is a planet in the constellation Lira.
Prot (Kevin Spacey) claims to come from K - PAX. Prot is an alien, then.
We meet him at a railway station at the start of the film ...he appeared out of nowhere! says a homeless man to the police who are about to arrest him, mistakenly believing him to be the author of a recent theft against a woman, but Prot is just trying to help the unfortunate lady.
Where does he come from? Why doesn't he have any luggage?
...I don't need any, your planet is very bright!
Ok, he's crazy.
Prot is then taken to a psychiatric clinic under the care of Dr. Powell (Jeff Bridges).
They try to treat him, he's subjected to multiple questions but Prot is damn precise and convincing in his answers, the answers an extra-terrestrial would give!
He's given psychoactive drugs but they seem to have no effect on him...
Days go by and Dr. Powell can’t get anywhere, in fact, it's almost as if the roles have reversed, with him being the patient and Prot the doctor... but Powell is extremely determined to find out the truth, Prot cannot be an alien!
Spacey is very good in his "stability" as an alien. By stability I mean "perfection" or if we want "evolution". He's an evolved being compared to a terrestrial. He travels by exploiting light, so he says, and doesn't feel emotions of any sort but knows what is good and evil and naturally and infallibly always chooses only good.
Bridges, on the other hand, is a bit subdued but he's a great actor and handles it as always.
Noteworthy is also the performance of the clinic's patients who more or less fall in love with Prot, who quickly becomes their favorite. I can only take one of you to K-PAX when I return home!
I really liked this movie and I was quite surprised to discover, browsing the internet, that a good 60% of critics and audiences have panned it, calling it sappy, boring, filled with new-age philosophy, and rhetoric. All things I avoid like the plague and yet, although I realize in retrospect that there's some truth in these statements, I can't deny that I followed it with interest and engagement, perhaps I'm already losing touch.
In any case, I recommend it to you and I would be curious to know, if any of you have seen it, whether you liked it too or not!
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