Main Cast: Antonio Sabato, Jr., Emmanuelle Vaugier, Eric Roberts
Release Year: 2001
Country: US
Run Time: 120 minutes
Plot
When we first meet beautiful, psychic private investigator Tracy Wellman (Emmanuelle Vaugier), she's confronting a psycho pedophile in a junkyard in a nearly fatal effort to rescue a young boy being held prisoner. Luckily, FBI agent Dan Oliver (Antonio Sabato Jr.) is nearby to help. But he's not around for her next case, in which she meets her mental match in mysterious cult leader David Mendez (Eric Roberts) as she tries to free a senator's daughter from his oily clutches. Naturally, agent Oliver leads the charge against the fortified cult compound -- with Tracy inside. ~ Buzz McClain, All Movie Guide
Review
Crisply directed and punctuated with the proper amount of fiery action set pieces -- including a brief helicopter-on-helicopter dogfight -- Mindstorm uses its momentum to leap over gaping holes in the backstory-heavy plot. The psychic vs. psychic concept is interesting and most scenes have some sort of worthwhile twist to keep curiosity piqued. Emmanuelle Vaugier, who is nearly distractingly pretty, handles the heavy work of leading the film with ease, and B-movie veterans Antonio Sabato Jr. and Eric Roberts lend able assistance. The psychic vs. psychic aspect of the story has unrealized promise, but there is an interesting sequence from Tracy's childhood involving a secret government agency that conducts training on children to make them useful as psychic soldiers. All in all, there are some strong scenes that counterbalance the weak ones, but Vaugier makes even the lame scenes easy to look at. ~ Buzz McClain, All Movie Guide
