“Don’t be sorry.”

From Synchronic.

When a new designer drug called Synchronic hits the streets of New Orleans, paramedics Dennis (Jamie Dornan) and Steve (Anthony Mackie) are on the frontline of deadly oddities.  As the police slowly track the movement of the drug, the bodies continue to pile up as more users fall victim to strange deaths.  While Dennis has a steady life with his wife (Katie Aselton), teenage daughter, Brianna (Ally Ioannides), and infant daughter, Steve’s life is filled with drinking and partying… until he receives a diagnosis of a tumor on the pineal gland in his brain.  Keeping his diagnosis secret from Dennis, the two begin to fight because Dennis believes his friend is stealing and using painkillers.  However, when the two paramedics arrive at a call to find out that Brianna took Synchronic before disappearing, Dennis quickly begins to spiral.  Fed up with responding to deadly calls for Synchronic users, Steve goes to the shop that sells it and buys them out to keep it from others.  When Kermani (Ramiz Monsef), the chemist that created Synchronic, follows Steve home after he buys out the shop, he tells Steve that he’s also been on a mission to collect the drug since he realized its dangers.  Kermani explains that Synchronic was supposed to work as a sort of time-traveling drug by un-hindering the pineal gland so users could look through a window to the past, but until the pineal gland fully develops, it can cause teen users to disappear into the past.  Realizing that his brain cancer might allow him to experience Synchronic the same way that Brianna did, Steve decided to take a pill to figure out what happened to the girl.  When he takes Synchtonic, Steve slips into the past for several minutes, so he decides to carry out experiments with the drug to find a way to rescue Brianna before she’s lost forever.

The movie has a somewhat disjointed feel to it, but when put together with the interesting camera work and visual effects, it creates an unforgettable story. As Mackie develops his character through the movie’s progression, he truly becomes the protagonist the role requires.  Synchronic is a movie that must be actively watched, but it is a genuinely captivating sci-fi adventure.