Volition (2019)

(On Cable TV, May 2020) I do believe in being a little bit more indulgent with low-budget genre films—they’re not competing on the same level as the blockbusters, and the good ones try to excel within their own ambitions, according to the means at their disposal. So it is that Canadian low-budget science fiction film Volition does start with the clever concept of having someone see flashes of their future and act accordingly. Although our protagonist, who has become a small-time criminal, believes that there’s nothing he can do to avoid the flashes he’s shown. Never mind the “huh, he never seriously tried to change it?” angle—elementary movie literacy is enough to have a good idea of where this is all going. Once the shooting and the dying start, our protagonist gets additional motivation and revelations. Unfortunately, Volition becomes a far more standard time-travel film once it leaves the carefully restrained clairvoyance angle behind and starts meddling with bigger ideas. Then it becomes another time-travel thriller about fighting predestination, and retreats in pretty much every time-travel cliché in the book—albeit with a moderate amount of wit along the way. I wish it all led to a better or more remarkable result, but Volition can’t escape its own slight disappointment: It’s not bad, but there’s less to impress here than was suggested at first.