Radio Free Albemuth

2014 • 111 minutes

About this movie

From sci-fi author Philip K. Dick (Blade Runner, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly) comes his most prophetic thriller to date. It's 1985 in an alternate reality and Berkeley record store clerk Nick Brady (Jonathan Scarfe, Perception) begins to experience strange visions transmitted from an extra-terrestrial source he calls VALIS. He uproots his family and moves to Los Angeles where he becomes a successful music executive with a secret mission to overthrow the oppressive government led by US President Fremont (Scott Wilson - The Walking Dead). With the help of his best friend, sci-fi writer, Philip K. Dick himself (Shea Whigham - Boardwalk Empire, American Hustle) and a beautiful, mysterious woman named Silvia (Alanis Morissette - Weeds), Nick finds himself drawn into a conspiracy of cosmic, mind-shattering proportions. Although it might cost them their freedom or even their lives, they join forces to expose the dangerous truth about the corrupt regime.

Ratings and reviews

So, you're thinking there aren't many movies out right now and this one might be ok during the lull. If you rent this movie, you will hate yourself in the morning for wasting $4 and minutes of your life (30 for me before I turned the movie off). What's bad - screenplay, cinematography, actor dialog/screen presence/delivery, editing...well, for every category for which an academy award is given this thing gets an "F". Terrible.

The acting was crap. No performance seems convincing. It moves slow. None of the interesting parts of the story were explored. It's premonitions about our present world are the only thing that make it worth watching. It's enough though.

PKD fans get another dose of the alternative reality mastermind behind Blade Runner and Total Recall, among others. And it's suddenly relevant in our current absurdist political reality.