I loved the original "Stir of Echoes" so I was disheartened to see a direct-to-video sequel on the shelves of my local video store, but after hearing good things about it I decided to check it out and I was pleasantly surprised. First of all, this movie has nothing to do with the original "Stir of Echoes" except that the lead character is a father who sees ghosts lurking around him and his family. Second, this movie adds a political element by making the
lead character a soldier who is injured in the war and centering the events of the movie around a debate over whether killing on the battle field is comparable to everyday killing on US soil. The opening twenty minutes of this movie are compelling. We care about Rob Lowe's character and the decisions he has to make as a soldier. He doesn't want to have to kill anyone, least of all innocent people, and the choices a soldier makes are often very difficult to understand for the soldier, let alone friends and family at home. That's not to excuse hasty actions or tragic deaths perpetrated by soldiers, it's simply a statement that it's very easy to judge what people do "over there" in war when we're over here and not fighting for our lives every day, unsure whether a civilian in need of help is REALLY a civilian in need of help or a suicide bomber with bombs strapped to himself ready to blow us to smithereens if we try to help him. I say all this because the lead character in this movie fucks up badly and makes a decision that costs people their lives and puts him in a coma.

It's a sad situation and very recognizable for many people in this country who try to survive without health insurance, and his condition makes it more reasonable to see why he doesn't immediately see that something is wrong when he starts seeing dead people. Soon things begin to become "clear" through a stupid plot contrivance that I'll discuss in more detail below, and the poor guy realizes that he needs to do something to figure out what is going on and who the strange burned figure is that he keeps seeing in his visions. The mystery is cool if not totally unpredictable, and the conclusion is wrenching and left me yelling at the screen. Suffice it to say that whatever side you fall on with the debate over whether war is ever justified, you'll have something to be angry about. It really bothered me that people were so willing to dismiss this guy and call him a killer and compare his actions to those of someone in this country, not in a battle situation, who killed an innocent person in cold blood because he was angry. Even if killing is wrong no matter who does it, then the most important part of that sentence is that KILLING IS WRONG. I was furious with some of the characters in this movie who were willing to cover up a murder simply to protect a friend. That's not good for anyone involved, whether there are vengeful ghosts in the picture or not! I must say that I didn't expect this movie to engage me in a moral debate with myself, and I appreciate and respect it for doing just that.

That being said... is it just me or is Rob Lowe a really bad actor? His overacting in this movie made me flinch more than once and detracted from the movie. Not only that, but the explanation for why this guy sees dead people is exceedingly stupid and not really an explanation. The movie would have been better off without the histrionics, if the filmmakers left it unexplained why the guy could see ghosts. It would be easy enough to draw the conclusion as
to why he could see the particular ghosts he sees in this movie without going into a hokey set piece with a blind soldier and a bunch of mumbo-jumbo about how the supernatural events came about. I'm annoyed and I advise you to fast forward through this entire sequence. You won't miss anything and the movie really is stronger without all the bullshit.

An in-name-only sequel that actually manages to be not only watchable but entertaining, if you ignore the caveats mentioned above.

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