DVD Release Date:  September 25, 2007
Theatrical Release Date:  April 27, 2007
Rating:  PG-13 (for intense sequences of violent action, and some language)
Genre:  Drama/Suspense/Thriller
Run Time:  96 min.
Director:  Lee Tamahori
Actors:  Nicolas Cage, Julianne Moore, Jessica Biel, Thomas Kretschmann, and Peter Falk
 
If you like Nicolas Cage, and if you’re into movies like Minority Report, The Lake House, and Memento – which highlight protagonists with unusual (and convenient) gifts of foreknowledge, and you don’t mind engaging in a lot of “willing suspension of disbelief” – you’ll love Paramount’s new thriller, Next.

Chris Johnson (Cage) is a B-rated Las Vegas magician who has a knack for knowing what will happen slightly before it happens.  Most people think it’s a trick, and Chris definitely wants to keep it that way. But when he uses his gift to make some quick cash at a casino AND disarms a murderer before he shoots his victims, he evokes the attention of the FBI pretty quickly.

After a high-speed chase, Chris loses the cops who are trailing him, but since the car he stole had Lo-Jack, the beautiful but hard-nosed FBI agent, Callie Ferris (Julianne Moore), finds him pretty quickly.  It’s great timing, too, because the FBI could really use these predictive services to track a nuclear device they know is about to be detonated in Los Angeles.

The magician has no interest in becoming the government’s lackey, however, and he argues that his gift of foresight only applies to events that will take place in the next two-and-a-half minutes AND events of which he is a part.  What Chris doesn’t tell the FBI is that he also has visions of a gorgeous girl, Liz (Jessica Biel), and he can see events that she’s involved with way ahead of time.

The visions of this girl are so intriguing that Chris finds a way to evade the suits and meet her in the restaurant where she often hangs out.  He pulls off some chivalry with a jerk who’s threatening Liz, and he persuades her to take him to Flagstaff, where inclement weather forces them to pull off the highway and spend the night at a rustic mountain lodge.

Meanwhile, not only is the FBI looking for him, but now the bad guys with the nuclear devices have gotten wind of his powers and potential to stop their plans, and they are hunting him as well.  Chris and Liz develop a romantic relationship, but he doesn’t want to pull her into the mess.  The FBI, however, has no such qualms, and when Liz takes a walk into town, Callie has a talk with her, convincing her that Chris is a psychopath who needs to be stopped.