Greg Kinnear as Paul Duncan
Rebecca Romijn-Stamos as Jessie Duncan
Robert De Niro as Richard Wells
Cameron Bright as Adam Duncan
Jake Simons as Dan Sandler
Elle Downs as Clara Sandler
Raoul Bhaneja as Samir Miklat
Jenny Levine as Sandra Shaw
Thomas Chambers as Jordan Shaw
Munro Chambers as Max Shaw
Jeff Christensen as Hal Shaw
Deborah Odell as Tanya
Critique:
One such topic is the highly controversial idea of human cloning. Besides the legal issues surrounding the practice, there are many ethical and moral issues connected to the application, which have caused the pursuit of a human clone to be banned in most nations.
In the new film “Godsend,” the cold clinic facts of human cloning are presented in human terms when a loving young couple named Paul and Jessie Duncan (Greg Kinnear and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos), lose their only child Adam (Cameron Bright), in a freak accident the day after his eighth birthday. Stricken with grief and unlikely to have another child due to complications from Adam’s birth the couple have collapsed in upon themselves. A prominent doctor named Richard Wells (Robert De Niro) learns of the tragedy an offers to help. At first angry and skeptical over the offer, the Duncan’s soon accept the offer and sever all ties with their former life in order to complete the illegal cloning in secrecy.
Everything seems to go as planned as Jessie delivers the baby boy who is the exact image of her lost son. Shortly after his eight birthday, the new Adam starts to have horrific dreams that are explained to be night terrors. As the weeks go by, Adam becomes more and more disturbed, and potentially dangerous leading Paul to question what they have done and to suspect that Dr. Wells is hiding something.
What started off as an interesting premise with a good cast quickly becomes stale, as the narrative of “Godsend” is so bad that people were laughing at scenes that were supposed to be tense and gripping. The resolution to the story never arrives and the explanations are so ham-fisted that they will have you rolling your eyes in disbelief. The plot is a jumbled mess filled with red herrings, stilted dialogue and non-sequiters that one has to wonder how a film with such a good cast could have gone so wrong. The film was almost painful to sit through and made me wonder on more than one occasion how De Niro could let himself be attached to such a mess as it plays out at best like a bad TV movie of the week. Take my advice and avoid this lemon and “Godsend” is simply God Awful.
