12 Monkeys: Barrel of suspense

There are two types of Brad Pitt roles: ones that focus on his natural acting ability and ones that focus on his good looks. In 1995's "12 Monkeys," Pitt plays mental patient turned insane revolutionary Jeffrey Goines whose maddening genius is trapped inside a body and a world that don't seem ready for it. The film plays on the edge of insanity and shows how sanity is judged as majority thought. Pitt's character exploits that idea, while time traveler Jim Cole (Bruce Willis) is victim to it. \nThe only role to ever garner Pitt an Academy Award nomination, Goines is a man whose words seem only sane within a mental institution. His insight into the subject of insanity makes the definition of the word hazy and leaves the viewer wondering what to make of Goines' sanity. Pitt plays the role perfectly, combining long monologs with jerky body movements. \n The film takes place in several planes of existence, with Cole being sent from the year 2035 back in time to find a cure to a deadly virus that has killed more than 90 percent of humanity in 1997. Unfortunately for him, he is sent to 1990 instead of 1996, making it difficult to accomplish his goals. Of course, once in the past, the society around him dubs him insane because no one believes his seemingly "crazy" story. Cole is placed in the mental institution and meets Goines, who in his own crazy way explains sanity to Cole and tells him that what makes people insane is their inability to live like everyone else. He even has a rant about how people in this society are just consumers, an unintentional foreshadow to his Tyler Durden character in 1999's "Fight Club."\n The film is based on a 1962 French short called "La Jette" and is directed by former Monty Python member Terry Gilliam. With good performances from Willis and Madeleine Stowe, and an incredible one from Pitt, "12 Monkeys" is a sci-fi thriller that plays with time travel in a different way than other films. Unlike "Back to the Future" and "Time Cop," films in which the future can be changed by adjusting the past, Cole cannot change the future by altering the past. Instead, he can only use the past as a tool for learning, and the film's final act is a chilling example of how we cannot escape our own destinies.