There
are those who believe in God so that they can spend eternity
with Him in heaven…and there are some who believe
in God just so that they won't spend eternity in Hell.
Adam Moses is about to find out which of those two people
he is.
When
an investigation goes awry, Adam Moses finds himself trapped
in a single hour of his life…an unending loop of
time in which actions have no consequence and yet no good
act can be carried through to its fruitful ending.
Content
The storyline of Limbo is extremely cerebral and complex,
following a mental dialogue which most resembles a cross
between Memento and Dark City, despite its
more apparent similarity to Groundhog Day.
Basically,
this is the story is of Adam Moses, a successful lawyer
who gets dragged into trying to prove who killed a local
mayor. However, everything goes awry when an assassin's
bullet cuts short Moses' life and plunges him into the surreal
muck of limbo.
Reviewing
this film is difficult because I don't want to give away
plot twists, yet I can't avoid the plot twists and still
review the film. As such, I will try to not give away the
bigger plot twists, while covering the more basic concepts.
The
director grew up in a Catholic background and was fascinated
by the concept of Limbo, the edge existence that is reserved
for unbaptized infants and people who died before Christ's
death and resurrection. The idea is that it is like a metaphysical
threshing floor in which chaff and wheat are separated,
with the chaff (evil souls) being blown out into the fires
of hell and the threshed wheat (Godly souls) being carted
off to heaven.
Confusion
assails Adam Moses
at every turn once he enters...
...the
lonely abyss which
is limbo.
The
director felt that the best way to examine this would be
with a world that was very much like our own but one in
which our consequences had no meaning. This is accomplished
for the character of Adam Moses through the reliving of
his last hour of life. Because an hour is such an insignificant
amount of time, nothing of any value can be done in it before
the hour restarts again. However, if no consequences stretch
from one hour to the next, then any evil deed could be done
with "no consequences." Adam Moses can literally
get away with murder.
The
only things that Adam has to hold him accountable are his
own conscience, the few people who share his region of limbo
with him, and Vaughn-the one 'mortal' friend whom Adam repeatedly
saves and befriends for the hour's worth of companionship
it affords him. Amongst those trapped in this hour-cycle
with him is a black man named Lasloe the Great, who is obsessed
with drugs and escapism, and a mysterious red-head named
Rebecca, who seems strangely ambivalent about right and
wrong.
As hour
cycle follows hour cycle, evil and madness preys at Adam's
doorstep, encouraging him to become the monster he longs
to be. While a few dissident voices from a homeless man
and his local priest encourage Adam to choose the path of
God, he is surrounded by people who encourage him to ignore
the morality of his recent past and own the power of life
and death.
In the
end the ultimate test that confronts Adam Moses is the exact
same test as that of the Garden of Eden: accept God and
His rules or attempt to become your own god?
There
are those who believe in God so that they can spend eternity
with Him in heaven…and there are some who believe
in God just so that they won't spend eternity in Hell.
Adam Moses is about to find out which of those two people
he is.
