'Push' has vibrant cinematography and decent acting, but I'm blasted if I know what it's about. Oh, I understand how the characters are. Push is a chase film dolled up with supernatural powers and chintzy retro design motifs. September 11, 2009 Rating:.

Push is a 2009 American superhero film directed by Paul McGuigan and written by David Bourla. Starring Chris Evans, Dakota Fanning, Camilla Belle, and Djimon Hounsou, the film centers on a group of people born with various superhuman abilities who band together in order to take down a government agency that is using a dangerous drug to enhance their powers in hopes of creating an army of super soldiers.

The film was released on February 6, 2009, by Summit Entertainment and Icon Productions. It was a moderate box office success, though critical reception was mostly negative.

Plot[edit]

In 1945, the United States government sets up The Division, an agency that tracks and experiments on people who possess psychic abilities. Each psychic is categorized into a group based on what powers they have. Two Movers, teenager Nick Gant and his father Jonah, are hiding from Agent Carver of Division. Jonah tells Nick about a vision he received from a Watcher about a young girl Nick must help in the future to bring down Division. Nick watches Carver murder Jonah before he escapes.

Years later, Division has developed a drug which can boost psychic abilities. All of the test subjects died until a Pusher named Kira successfully adapted to it. Kira escapes from Division and steals a syringe of the drug before fleeing to Hong Kong, a common hiding place for psychics. Nick now lives in Hong Kong as an expatriate, but is in trouble due to gambling debts he incurred while attempting to use his power as a Mover to cheat the games. Nick is visited by Cassie Holmes, a moody teenage Watcher. Her mother, Sarah, is considered the strongest Watcher ever born and directly aided in Kira's escape. Nick realizes Cassie is the girl his father saw in his vision and decides to help her find Kira and the briefcase containing the stolen drug. They are attacked by the Chinese triads at a market and Nick is wounded by a Bleeder before he and Cassie get away. Nick meets a Stitch named Teresa Stowe who heals him from his wounds.

Nick and Cassie use her Watcher abilities to track down Kira, who is actually Nick's ex-girlfriend. Kira hid the case and then had a Wiper erase her memory of its location. Nick recruits a Shadow named Pinky Stein to hide Kira from Division. Cassie attempts to foresee the case's location, competing with the Triads Watcher Pop Girl. As Kira begins to get sick from withdrawal, Nick feels he must meet with Carver to save her life. Nick learns that Kira will get sicker and eventually die without more of the drug, which only Carver has. Victor, a talented Mover and Carver's assistant, battles Nick and nearly kills him before Cassie convinces Carver to spare him. Cassie then finds a key in Kira's shoe which unlocks a locker atop a construction site where the case is hidden.

Knowing that their every move can be seen by both Division and Triad Watchers, Nick proposes an elaborate plan to obtain the drug and eliminate their enemies. He creates several envelopes containing instructions for each of his friends, including Shifter Hook Waters and Sniff Emily Wu. Nick seals each envelope and gives them to his friends before hiring the Wiper who erased Kira's memory to do the same to him. With his memory wiped the Watchers are unable to see his future, enabling the group to execute Nick's plan. Hook locates the case and creates a duplicate of it and the syringe, while Pinky delivers Kira to Carver as part of the plan. Carver then pushes her into believing she is actually a Division agent and her relationship with Nick was a lie.

Cassie is confronted by Pop Girl, only for the Wiper to appear and erase Pop Girl's memory per instructions from Nick. Nick visits Carver and discovers Kira's brainwashing. They travel to the construction site where Carver unknowingly retrieves the fake case, but the Triads arrive and attempt to steal the case. A battle erupts between all three groups which leads to the Triad Bleeders being killed. Nick uses his newly discovered Mover power to battle Victor. The triad leader uses his bleeder powers and kills Victor when the young bleeder dies. Nick uses the opportunity to kill the triad leader. Nick seizes the fake syringe and Carver allow him to inject himself with it, apparently dying. After Kira and Carver leave, Cassie appears and reveals Nick is alive. They retrieve the real case and syringe from a dumpster and discuss using it to free Cassie's mother from Division, who might have planned the whole thing years before Cassie was born.

Kira discovers her unopened envelope, which contains photographs proving her relationship with Nick was real. She then pushes Carver and a gunshot is heard.

Cast[edit]

• Chris Evans as Nick Gant, a Mover living in Hong Kong in order to stay hidden from Division. He witnessed his father being murdered by Agent Carver and also once had a relationship with Kira. Nick is an untrained Mover who has difficulty controlling his power.
  • Colin Ford as young Nick

• Dakota Fanning as Cassie Holmes, a Watcher and the daughter of the greatest Watcher the Division has ever encountered. Like Nick, her abilities are not fully developed. She is sometimes confused by what she draws in her premonitions.
  • Cassie's mother Sarah Frank is uncredited; a powerful Watcher who was captured by the Division to prevent her use of powers against them. It is through her that most of the events occur as she helped Kira escape Division HQ, paid Wo to erase Kira's memories, as well as get Teresa in the right place to heal Nick, and told Nick's father to tell his son to follow the one who gave him a flower. This alone shows the strength of her Watcher abilities, as she saw this all happen at least a decade ago where most can only see a few hours or days into the future.

• Camilla Belle as Kira Hudson/Hollis, a high-level Pusher, a recent escapee of the Division, and the only Division patient to have survived experimentation.
• Djimon Hounsou as Agent Henry Carver, a Division agent and a powerful Pusher who killed Nick's father. He is sent to recapture Kira.
• Joel Gretsch as Jonah Gant, Nick's father and an advanced Mover whose refusal to join the Division cost him his life. It is implied that he and Hook once worked in the Division together.
• Ming-Na Wen as Emily Wu, a Sniffer who helps Nick and Cassie find Kira. She uses her Sniff abilities to make money.
• Cliff Curtis as Hook Waters, a former Division Shifter. He believes that Division murdered his wife to keep him in line. He has a habit of saying 'that won't last long' after he uses his abilities.
• Nate Mooney as Pinky Stein, a Shadow who hid Kira from Division and the Triads. His nickname is derived from his missing pinky finger, which he implies was done to him by Division.
• Corey Stoll as Agent Mack, a Sniffer agent.
• Scott Michael Campbell as Agent Holden, a Sniffer agent.
• Neil Jackson as Victor Budarin, an advanced Mover and Carver's right-hand man.
• Maggie Siff as Teresa Stowe, a Stitch who helps heal Nick. Her motives are not genuine, and she is shown to be out for personal gain.
• Paul Car as Wo Chiang, a Wiper who lives on a house boat in Hong Kong Harbour.
• Xiao Lu Li as Pop Girl, a Chinese Triad Watcher who tries to find Nick and Cassie throughout Hong Kong. Like Cassie, she draws her visions. Her visions are based on others' intentions and decisions.
• Kwan Fung Chi and Jacky Heung as Pop Boys, the two Triad Bleeders.
• Haruhiko Yamanouchi as Pop Father, Triad Bleeder and father to the three 'Pop' siblings.

Reception[edit]

Box office[edit]

On its opening weekend, the film opened No. 6 grossing $10,079,109 in 2,313 theaters with a $4,358 average.^[3] The film grossed $48,858,618 worldwide, and $16,285,488 in DVD sales in the US alone making $65,157,106 (not including worldwide DVD sales) surpassing its budget cost of $38 million by over $27 million.^[2]

Critical response[edit]

Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 23% approval rating based on 126 reviews and a rating average of 4.3/10. The site's critical consensus reads, 'The sci-fi thriller Push is visually flashy but hyperkinetic and convoluted.'^[4]Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average to critic reviews, gave the film an average score of 36 out of 100, based on 21 critics.^[5]Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film one and a half stars out of four stating: 'Push' has vibrant cinematography and decent acting, but I'm blasted if I know what it's about.'^[6] Robert Koehler of Variety also gave a negative review calling the film: “A confused jumble of parts in search of a whole, Push plays like a mix-tape sample of scenes from Heroes, Fringe, Alias and The X-Files as it follows good guys gifted with paranormal powers trying to stave off bad guys with the same…'^[7]

Michael Rechtshaffen of The Hollywood Reporter gave a negative review: “While the concept of corralling assorted Movers (those with telekinetic talents), Watchers (clairvoyants) and, of course, Pushers (mind controllers with the ability to alter one’s memories) and placing them against a stylish Asian backdrop is intriguing, the picture seldom rises to the occasion.”^[8] Tasha Robinson of The A.V. Club was more positive towards the film, giving it a B+: 'Superhero fans will likely be into Push just for the cool-factor of watching embattled heroes and villains in a tense war of wits, wills, and skills. That broader audience is less likely to come along for the ride, but this particular gateway drug at least has ambition and brains going for it, as well as the usual spastic style.'^[9]

Comic[edit]

Wildstorm, an imprint of DC Comics, published a comic book mini-series that acts as a prequel to the film. It was written by Marc Bernardin and Adam Freeman (who write The Highwaymen for Wildstorm) and Bruno Redondo supplied the art.^[10] Issues were published between November 2008 and February 2009, and a softcover collection (ISBN978-1401224929) was published in September 2009.

Home release[edit]

Push was released on DVD and Blu-ray on July 7, 2009. The DVD included deleted scenes, a commentary, and a 'making of' featurette. Wal-Mart released the film as a double-feature DVD with Knowing. Push was released on 4K UHD Blu-Ray on April 10, 2018.^[11]

Soundtrack and score[edit]

No official soundtrack has been released, although the full score is available to stream online on the official Neil Davidge website.

See also[edit]

• Stargate Project, the real U.S. Federal Government project to investigate psychic phenomena, used as a basis for the film.
• Firestarter, a 1984 film (based on the Stephen King novel of the same name) with a similar plot

References[edit]

1. ^'PUSH (12A)'. British Board of Film Classification. January 19, 2009. Retrieved September 29, 2015.
2. ^ ^abc'Push (2009)'. Box Office Mojo. Retrieved May 6, 2009.
3. ^'Weekend Box Office Results for February 6–8, 2009'. Box Office Mojo. February 8, 2009. Retrieved February 10, 2009.
4. ^'Push (2009) – Rotten Tomatoes'. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved May 1, 2016.
5. ^'Push Reviews – Metacritic'. Metacritic. Retrieved May 1, 2016.
6. ^Ebert, Roger (February 4, 2009). 'Push Movie Review & Film Summary (2009)'. Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved May 1, 2016.
7. ^Koehler, Robert (February 1, 2009). 'Push Variety'. Variety. Retrieved May 1, 2016.
8. ^Rechtshaffen, Michael (February 2, 2009). 'Film Review: Push – Hollywood Reporter'. The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved May 1, 2016.
9. ^Robinson, Tasha (February 5, 2009). 'Push Film Review – AV Club'. The A.V. Club. Retrieved May 1, 2016.
10. ^SDCC 08: Wildstorm Snares Push LicenseArchived January 23, 2009, at the Wayback Machine, IGN, July 22, 2008
11. ^Push 4K Blu-ray, retrieved April 10, 2018

External links[edit]

• Push on IMDb
• Push at Box Office Mojo
• Push at Rotten Tomatoes
• Push at Metacritic
• Push at ReelSoundtrack

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/Push

Go To

Band simulator game. Rock Legend is a turn-based game, in some ways similar to the gameplay of Kudos. Each turn of the game represents a single day, and it's up to you to decide how the band spends their time. Some of the activities you will need to spend time on include songwriting, rehearsals, auditions, publicity events, practicing individual instruments, and of course, recording your latest album.

For the 1996 novel of the same name that was made into the 2009 movie Precious, click here.

A 2009 movie about Nick (Chris Evans), a man who lives in perpetual fear of Division - a worldwide agency of major governments whose goal is to train and employ psychics for governmental use. Not content with their normal levels of power, the US branch of Division has been testing a drug to boost psychic abilities. Only one person, Kira (Camilla Belle), has been able to survive this drug, and she quickly escapes with a sample after the first test of the drug on her.

When a 13-year-old precognitive girl named Cassie (Dakota Fanning) tracks down Nick in Hong Kong and makes him an offer he can't refuse, the two team up to track down Kira and the stolen sample with the hope that finding it will help them bring down Division.

A short comic series was also created, but any further entries in the series are unlikely due to the movie's generally poor performance and reception. There was a television series in development being written by David Hayter at some point in 2010, but the lack of updates since then means it has fallen victim to Development Hell and is effectively cancelled.

This movie provides examples of:

• Anti-Hero: Nick has shades of the morally bankrupt type. Our introduction to Nick is him trying to cheat at dice. And failing. He gets better as the movie goes on.
• Artistic License – Biology: The movie has Nick inject soy sauce into his arm with no consequences.
• Badass Family: The Chinese Triad we meet features a family consisting of a few Bleeders and a skilled Watcher.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Victor. Both he and Carver are very well dressed, and very good at their jobs.

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• Bald of Evil: Both Carver and Mac sport chrome domes.
• The Chessmaster:
  • Both Cassie and the Pop Girl are constantly trying to prove that they're the best chessmaster in the film. Little do they know that they're really just fighting for second place. The real chessmaster is Cassie's mom. See Gambit Roulette below.
  • Nick becomes one mid-movie, as he was the one who came up with the idea of using notes and mind-wipes. He also wrote all the notes, not showing them to anyone until the right time.
• *Click* Hello: Pop Girl clicks off the safety right behind Cassie near the end.
• Competence Zone: Averted. Competence and power are pretty well linked to age and experience, with the one exception of Kira, who is supercharged by the drug above everyone else.
• Covers Always Lie:
  • The scene in the poster on this very page never happens.
  • Promotional images also seem to imply that a 'push' involves telekinesis, when it actually revolves around implanting thoughts. Movers are the ones capable of moving objects with their mind.
• Deadly Upgrade: The serum has killed every test subject, save Kira.
• Deadpan Snarker: Cassie is chock full of these, and Nick has his occasional moments.
  Cassie:(having just drawn a picture of her, Nick, and her mother, all dead) You better do something quick, 'cause I'm getting sick of drawing dead bodies.
• Death by Irony: Carver, killed the very same way he killed Mac earlier in the movie.
• Differently Powered Individual: See the Psychic Powers entry, below
• The Dragon: Victor to Carver, Pop Girl to her father.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: The Triad Dad is distraught at the sight of his dead sons.
• Evil Brit: The mercenary Stitch, as her accent gives it away.
• Evil Counterpart: Victor to Nick, Pop Girl to Cassie, and Carver to Kira.
• Fainting Seer: Cassie and her evil watcher counterpart have occasional flutters, but neither of them go full-on unconscious.
• Face–Heel Turn: Subverted. Kira is originally Pushed into different loyalties most of the way through the movie, but a photo of her and Nick allows her to remember who she really is and where the lies are. Immediately afterwards, she kills Carver.
• Fake Memories: Pushers create them, or alter existing ones to match.
• Force and Finesse: Nick and Victor, respectively. While Nick is capable of extremely strong bursts of power, Victor has significantly more fine control and depth of using his powers, and completely outmatches Nick until he makes the incredibly poor decision to try and trade power-enhanced blows with him. Needless to say, in a close in fight of simply trading power blows, the brute force user (Nick) comes out on top.
• Gambit Roulette:
  • The entire movie was one gigantic one by Cassie's mother to get the serum into the hands of her daughter. Cassie jokes that her mom must've been planning this since before Cassie was born. Chances are good that she's right.
  • Nick's letters are a sub-gambit of this one, and they're all improvised without any Watcher foresight, especially the one of he and Kira at Coney Island at the end. This is justified by them having dated for quite some time and Cassie's abilities.
• Gorn: Nick spends half of his screen time on his back writhing in pain.
• Guns Akimbo: A favorite technique of the good guys, not that they ever get to use them.
• Healing Hands: It's here, but it's quite painful, and can work in reverse.
• Hime Cut: Pop Girl's got one.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • Carver is killed in exactly the same way that he killed a character earlier in the movie.
  • Maybe the Division should have only used people whose abilities could actually be restrained for those lab experiments. A super-powerful Shifter or Watcher doesn't sound all that dangerous or difficult to imprison compared to someone with the power of Mind Control. The most powerful Watcher in the story spends the entire story off-screen in their possession (possibly due to her own plan, but still imprisoned).
• Hostage for MacGuffin: At the end, where Carver wants to trade Kira for the drug.
• Improvised Weapon: A wet floor sign by Kira, chairs and bamboo shoots by Victor.
• Inspired by..: A mild case, as it turns out there actually was a government project for investigating psychics.
• Instant Expert: Nick has been a Mover all his life, and he sucks at it at the beginning, barely able to cheat some dice. As the movie progresses, it becomes clear that he's simply not practiced or refined with his power, but he is naturally talented - he tends to do fine with larger, more forceful movements than smaller, precise ones. He's consistently surprised when he does manage to do something powerful, and watching Victor at work gives him a lot of ideas that he successfully copies.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Between Nick and Cassie. He's easily double her age, if not more.
• Karmic Death:
  • Nick stays his hand and doesn't kill Victor, who is killed anyway three seconds later by a Bleeder.
  • Averted when Kira kills Carver in a fairly sadistic but fitting way.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Wipers can remove specific memories, which doubles as a way to throw off Watchers - if you don't know what you're doing, neither do they.
• Lens Flare: Mover impacts sometimes have this effect, and two Movers squaring off create the equivalent of a small light show.
• Little Miss Badass: Cassie. 13 years old and a fairly accomplished Watcher, she tracks down Nick by herself, is often an early warning system for being tracked, and is essential to the group's ending plan.
• Living MacGuffin: Kira isn't the MacGuffinexactly, but she stole it, has it in her bloodstream, and is chased after by the villains as the only successful survivor of the super-psychic-serum.
• Magic Skirt: Cassie. Necessary, because the character's all of 13.
• Manipulative Bastard: All Pushers to a degree, with Kira being on the low end and Carver on the high. Being able to essentially control people's minds leads to a warped worldview.
• Man of Wealth and Taste: Carver, with his expensive suits and private jet. Division pays well.
• Master of Illusion: Hook, one of Nick's friends. It helps that he's a Shifter, and he uses his abilities to live the high life in casinos and nightclubs by shifting pieces of paper into high-currency bills.
• Meaningful Echo: Carver's 'What a waste' line, said after he killed Nick's father and after he thinks Nick killed himself.
• Meaningful Name: Cassie is probably named after Cassandra, a prophetess from Greek mythology.
• Mêlée à Trois: Nick, Cassie and friends vs the Chinese Triad vs Division
• Memory Gambit- Tack on some Omniscient Morality License and you essentially have a non-traceable future, since Watchers work off of everyone's hypothetical plans and intentions; by erasing their conscious memory of the plan and leaving themselves instructions to read later, they are able get around the Watchers.
• Men Are the Expendable Gender: Despite the relatively high total bodycount, shown female character deaths number exactly zero, though that number rises to one counting the deleted scenes. The two female villains 3 if you count Kira are menacingly threatening but they're stopped right before they cross the Moral Event Horizon:
  • Stowe, the Stitcher tries to kill/interrogate Nick, only for Nick to pull a gun on her and tie her up in his apartment. In a deleted scene, Pop Girl kills her for her failure.
  • Pop Girl finally tracks down Cassie and pulls a gun on her but the old man Wiper sneaks up behind her and erases her mind, which is either better or worse, depending on your viewpoint.
  • Pushed!Kira spends the final battle running, fleeing and using her power to push mooks into dropping their guns or coming to her defense, never directly killing anyone unless Carver tells her to, and when she is freed from Carver's push, she kills him after reading Nick's note telling her to.
• Mind Rape: Remember that brother you don't have? Well, now you remember every moment of growing up together, and that your best friend/fellow Sniff brutally killed him. And even after you realize it's a push and that you killed the Sniff in revenge for nothing, the memories will still be there clear as day.
• More Than Mind Control: Being Pushed is this, as it replaces or adds memories to the victim. It can be overcome or resisted under the right circumstances.
• Mutant Draft Board: Division hunts down psychics to perform Super Soldier experiments on, or to draft into voluntary service. Any psychic they don't directly control, or who refuses to be recruited, Division agents either kill them outright or threaten them to not use their powers, and they employ Sniffs to track down any who disobey this edict. Many psychics live abroad in Hong Kong to keep as far away from the Sniffs as possible.
• Nightmare Fuel Coloring Book: Cassie's drawings of the future.
• Note to Self: Played straight twice with Kira and Nick.
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Neither Djimon Hounsou (from Benin) nor Cliff Curtis (from New Zealand) even bothers to try to sound like Americans. Neil Jackson (England) drops in and out of it with the 2 or 3 lines he has. While Carver specifically says he's working for the U.S. Division near the end, their home countries are never specified so they could have been recruited before or after they became U.S. citizens or have picked up the accents elsewhere.
• One Person, One Power: Strictly observed - each person seen with powers in the film has only one kind, and no multiply powered people are said to exist.
• Prophecy Twist: Cassie's drawing of a tiger clawing her to death: Pop Girl getting her memory eviscerated by the wiper with clawed hands in a room filled with cardboard boxes with the logo of a tiger.
• Psychic-Assisted Suicide: Pushers can make you eat your gun.
  • Carver to one of his men who had just failed him (he pushes him to think the gun's empty though).
  • During the final battle, Carver pushes two mooks to shoot each-other while Kira commands two under her control to walk off the edge of a building.
  • Kira to Carver at the end of the film. Yay karma!
• Psychic Powers: The basis of all powers in Push:
  • Pushers are able to use Mind Control. Really, it's More Than Mind Control, since it works by implanting and/or overwriting memories.
  • Wipers are able to erase all or parts of a person's memory.
  • Movers are telekinetics.
  • Shifters are Masters Of Illusion, allowing them to morph any object of their choice, though it seems the object does have to be of the same relative size of the object it's being shifted to, and it's temporary.
  • Bleeders Make Me Wanna Shout to the point that your ears bleed if you hear them.
  • Stitchers have Healing Hands, albeit very painful, and capable of working in reverse.
  • Sniffers can see where any object has ever been and who's used it. They get their name from how their ability works: literally by sniffing the object in a form of Psychometry.
  • Watchers predict the future through reading the intentions of others, so the future they see isn't permanent (though it usually is). They can be countered by not knowing what you're going to do until right before you do it, and having your memories erased can stop them dead in their tracks.
  • Shadows can hide people by 'shadowing' an object from them, allowing their subject to not be found. They are generally used to cancel out Sniffers. Extremely powerful ones can cancel out Watchers, though there's only one known occurrence of this.
  • A few other kinds are comic-exclusive, and venture well outside of the realm of what you'd expect from psychic powers:
    • Phasers can move through solid objects.
    • Porters can..well, guess.
    • Changers can shapeshift.
• Reed Richards Is Useless / Comes Great Responsibility: Inverted; in China, where Division has less of a hold, many psychics hold down occupations using their powers for profit (except the Shifter, who just carries a wallet full of money-shaped blank paper).
• Scarily Competent Tracker: The Sniffs. They used a 10-year old toothbrush with a weak scent to track Nick across several countries before finding him in Hong Kong.
• Scary Black Man: Carver. He's played by Djimon Honsou, what do you expect?
• Screw Gun Safety:
  • Some would say that if you're a telekinetic who's not very good at it, you would take extra care to make sure that the pistols you are levitating are not pointed at you when you work the slide.
  • Justified in one case: Carver pushes a Sniffer into shooting himself because he convinces him that the gun isn't loaded, but since mind control is at work, flagrant disregard for gun safety is excused.
• Screw Destiny: Cassie is trying to prevent the future she sees. The villains love You Can't Fight Fate since their watchers foresee a future in which the heroes all die.
• Scry vs. Scry: Cassie versus Pop Girl.
• Sequel Hook: Nick and Cassie defeat the Pop Gang and US Division agents, and they have the super drug with them. Kira gets Carver to kill himself, meaning she's off scot free, likely to go meet up with Nick and Cassie. US Division wants to keep the drug, and the fact that it exists at all, away from rival Divisions of other countries. Cassie's plan is to trade the drug for Cassie's mom and take down Division. How they are going to do that isn't really known yet, and since the movie was not a commercial or critical success, we'll likely never know.
• Shoot the Dog: The Chinese Triad leader killing Victor before Nick has to.
• Shout-Out:
  • Mind control being described as 'pushing' someone was first used in Stephen King's Firestarter, although as the power works here it's more evocative of a drug dealer 'pushing'.
  • To The X-Files episode, 'Pusher', whose eponymous villain was also able to push people into suicide.
  • The marble scene in the beginning is taken almost directly from a part in Ted Dekker's book Blink, a book where the main character can see potential futures. When he's about to be arrested, he rolls a rubber ball down the hall, timing it so that it will bounce off the right walls, causing a distraction so he and his love interest can get away.
• Sliding Scale of Free Will vs. Fate: Of the 'Prophecies as predictions based on people's intentions' variety.
• Slo Mo: A dramatic walk down a hallway. Verges on Narm.
• Strong as They Need to Be: Nick kept a lid on his powers to evade detection by Division so he starts off a relatively unskilled Mover. Once he shook off the cobwebs, he began to develop more finesse; his encounters with the much-stronger and infinitely more badass Victor seem to boost his competency via Awesomeness by Analysis to the point that in their final battle, he's enough of a match to overpower Victor to nearly beat him to death.
• Stylistic Suck: Cassie's drawings.
• Super Serum: The MacGuffin of the plot; Division is testing it on psychics to enhance their powers. It's failed so far in every case, save one.
• Super Soldier: Division's ultimate goal from their inception during WW II is to weaponize psychics into an unparalleled army.
• The Triads and the Tongs: A Hong Kong Triad is one of the antagonists in the film.
• Took a Level in Badass: Nick's powers (or perhaps his control of them) develop quite well over the course of the movie.
• Xanatos Speed Chess:
  • Once Nick and Cassie realize how they can shut down Pop Girl, things change very quickly, especially when the letters come into play.
  • The entire movie is this, as it's basically a Mêlée à Trois between two Chessmasters and a Manipulative Bastard.
• You Have Failed Me: Carver 'pushes' one of his Sniffs to shoot himself for letting Kira escape and falling for Kira's push that caused him to kill his partner. Carver was willing to send the agent home until the agent insisted he was willing to bet his life that there was no way he could be 'pushed' again. He may have also been genuinely worried that the guy had other implanted thoughts he didn't know about.