The Lazarus Project

**1/2 - There is certainly no dearth of mysterious psychological thriller films out there, each trying their darnedest to one-up each other by having the most shocking twist ending. Most of these films are satisfied to have one twist at the end that may throw the less savvy viewers for a bit of a loop, but more recently these kinds of films have striven for even more twistiness by adding at least one further plot turn at the tail end. Enter 2008’s independently made direct-to-DVD “The Lazaraus Project”, which adds even another bend in the story, making a total of at least four by my count, and possibly more depending on one’s interpretation. The gist of it is that Paul Walker – best known as one of the lead lunkheads in the irredeemably horrid car-porn “Fast and the Furious” series – gets the ole lethal injection in Texas for being in the vicinity of a death (cuz that’s really all you need do down there to be executed) only to wake up some indeterminate amount of time later as a maintenance man at a psychiatric hospital in Oregon. He wanders around the manor that houses the ward and does various things like adopt a stray dog and get randomly attacked by inmates, but then maybe it turns out that he’s actually a patient, or maybe not, then he kisses some lady, but maybe actually he burned his family to death or something, but then maybe he didn’t. Anyway, it has a lot of stuff going on, but to its credit it never really feels confusing, the ambient score is quite nicely done, and Walker shows that he can do more than just drive cars and grunt like an ape. I can sit through it once.