What if you could stop your heart to simulate a temporary death, and then be revived so you could describe your near-death experience to others? The mysteries of life--and the afterlife--compel five medical students (Julia Roberts, Kiefer Sutherland, Kevin Bacon, William Baldwin, Oliver Platt) to experiment with their own mortality, and what they discover has unsettling psychological implications. That's the intriguing premise of this neo-Gothic horror thriller, directed by Joel Schumacher (Batman & Robin) with his typical indulgence of vibrant colours and hyperactive, hallucinogenic style. The movie borders on silliness at times, and the near-death recollection of memories results in some repetitious scenes, but the dynamic young cast takes it all quite seriously, which is what keeps this gaudy thriller on the edge. The fascinating premise could have been made into a better film, but Schumacher's mainstream excess doesn't stop Flatliners from being slick, occasionally even provocative entertainment. --Jeff Shannon

Flatliners left quite a noticeable impression in my head. The story is quick paced and leaves you constantly absorbed and at many times quite tense. Its about five remarkable student doctors (notably Julia Roberts and Kevin Bacon) among whom, one of them has devised the mechanism of remaining dead (or getting flat-lined)for a few seconds and then coming back to life.

The procedure is quite 'complex' involving a plethora of medical knick-knacks - injections, electric blankets, oxygen masks and a variety of esoteric medical terms. I strongly suspect doctors coined all these words so that they never need to get layed off. But funnily they follow the KISS (Original version for engineers: Keep It Simple, stupid) (Extended version for doctors: Keep it Stupid, Simple) philosophy as well. At the risk of getting euthanized by some revenge-taking doctor reader, let me continue.

So the first guy who gets flat-lined hopes to find the answers to life which philosophy and religion cannot convincingly answer. He hopes to get it answered (and become famous) through applied science. He flat-lines for around two minutes and then comes back into our world left quite shaken. During death, he has a vision of an incident, when he was young, which left the strongest impression on his life. He killed another boy when he was kid, by accident, and he still feels responsible for it.

With the success of the first flat-liner, the others follow suit each of them extending their flat-line time further and further to test the limits of how long one can remain dead and experience life after death.

Meanwhile monsters from the past and future, keep coming back to haunt them after their flat-line experience. The first flat-liner is haunted by a young kid who tortures him when he is alone. The second who camera-ed all the women he took to bed, sees television sets all over playing his videos. The third is haunted by a young girl who he teased in school. The fourth is haunted by her suicide-dead father, for whom she feels responsible.

All of them are driven insane by these haunting and obsessions and think that the past seems to want to take revenge on them. The main focus on getting flat-lined is that your entire life passes through your eyes, at the moment of 'dying', whatever stage that is, and you are left mostly with the strongest impressions of life in your mind. Since they didn't die these strong impressions have somehow resurfaced and have become the focus of their lives.

All of them somehow come to terms with (and extinguish) their past demons. All of them except the first one who realizes the only way he can move on through life is getting flat-lined AGAIN. During this flat-line session, he sees himself getting flat-lined the first time and also sees the boy he killed, trying to kill him this time round. The boy kills him this time for a few minutes and in doing so has sought revenge. For a few minutes in the movie one is left wondering if he gets to come back. Thankfully (because most of us like happy endings) the boy absolves him of his past and he comes back to life again.

A very disappointing film from a very talented cast. In theory the story should have been a lot more entertaining as it is a very controversial subject, but the repetition was too much to bare. In the hands of a better director I think we could have been treated to a few more fright moments but alas what we have is certainly flat.

Flatliners... well where can i begin ? How about the cast , this movie has an brilliant cast including julia roberts,kevin bacon & kiefer sutherland all giving good performances but kiefer sutherland steals the show as the medical student obsessed with death and regrets his actions by being the person with the worst possible sin out of the group,you might even feel sorry for him.Anyway i dont wanna give anything away but basically it's about 5 medicall student's who kill them self's (flatline) in order to see well what happens when ur dead but what they dont know is that when they come back they bring there sins with them and basically there angry and want revenge.This is a good movie with some,weird,spooky parts that really make you think.Well worth a look,get this classic movie now and add it to your collection ! ! !

Is this how death really is? The only problem with this film is that when your dead you can't think which means you can't remember anything if you are legally dead. Apart from that it is the best movie in the world. Starring Kiefer sutherland and Kevin Bacon. The film contains strong language and scenes of violence.(strong).....

This film is a great psychological thriller that keeps you guessing throughout.The cast of KEVIN BACON,KIEFER SUTHERLAND AND JULIA ROBERTS were perfectly selected as the ambitious medical students who go one step too far.The director , JOEL SCHUMACHER, went on to do other great films such as FALLING DOWN and A TIME TO KILL and this movie really set him up as a respectable and talented director.this is a must see movie but is not for the easily shocked.