History Film / Push

A 2009 movie about Nick (Creator/ChrisEvans), a man who lives in perpetual fear of [[MutantDraftBoard Division]] - a worldwide agency of major governments whose goal is to train and employ psychics for governmental use. Not content with their normal levels of power, the US branch of Division has been testing a [[SuperSerum drug]] to boost psychic abilities. Only one person, Kira (Camilla Belle), has been able to survive this drug, and she quickly escapes with a sample after the first test of the drug on her.

** Pushers are able to use MindControl to a degree. Intially it's MoreThanMindControl, since it works by implanting and/or overwriting memories or ideas. At the strognest, it is pure MindControl

* StrongAsTheyNeedToBe: Nick kept a lid on his powers to evade detection by Division so he starts off a relatively unskilled Mover. Once he shook off the cobwebs, he began to develop more finesse; his encounters with the much more skilled Victor seem to boost his competency via AwesomenessByAnalysis to the point that in their final battle, [[spoiler: he's able to use his improved skills and talent for brute force over fineese to beat down Victor once he lures Victor into a match of blows.]]

* TookALevelInBadass: Nick goes from a rusty and out-of-practice user to becoming more skillful in his usage of his his powers, mixing it well with his power blows.

** [[spoiler: Kira to Carver at the end of the film. Yay karma!]]

* BadBoss: Downplayed, but it appears that The Division aren't exactly good employers to those not dedicated to the cause. Hook notes that he worked for ten years with "no thank you, no pension", just a warning to not shift again.

* FakeMemories: Pushers create them, or alter existing ones to match.

* LensFlare: Mover impacts sometimes have this effect, and two Movers squaring off create the equivalent of a small light show.

* PsychicAssistedSuicide: Pushers can make you eat your gun.

** Pushers are able to use MindControl. Really, it's MoreThanMindControl, since it works by implanting and/or overwriting memories.
** Wipers are able to erase all or parts of a person's memory.
** Movers are [[MindOverMatter telekinetics]].

** Bleeders MakeMeWannaShout to the point that your ears bleed if you hear them.
** Stitchers have HealingHands, albeit very painful, and capable of working in reverse.

*** Porters can...well, [[TeleportationTropes guess]].

* StrongAsTheyNeedToBe: Nick kept a lid on his powers to evade detection by Division so he starts off a relatively unskilled Mover. Once he shook off the cobwebs, he began to develop more finesse; his encounters with the much-stronger and infinitely more badass Victor seem to boost his competency via AwesomenessByAnalysis to the point that in their final battle, [[spoiler:he's enough of a match to overpower Victor to nearly beat him to death.]]

* TookALevelInBadass: Nick's powers (or perhaps his control of them) develop quite well over the course of the movie.

* [[spoiler: MemoryGambit]]- Tack on some OmniscientMoralityLicense and you essentially have a non-traceable future, since Watchers [[spoiler: work off of everyone's hypothetical plans and intentions.]]

* ScrewGunSafety:

* [[ZettaiRyouiki Golden Thigh Ratio]]: Cassie's jailbait skirt is part of her look as a LittleMissBadass.

* OnePersonOnePower: strictly observed - each person seen with powers in the film has only one kind, and no multiply powered people are said to exist.

** Bleeders MakeMeWannaShout.

* ReedRichardsIsUseless / ComesGreatResponsibility: Inverted; in China, where Division has less of a hold, many psychics hold down occupations using their powers for profit (except the Shifter, who just carries a wallet full of money-shaped blank paper).

* SequelHook: [[spoiler: Nick and Cassie defeat the Pop Gang and US Division agents, and they have the superdrug with them. Kira gets Carver to kill himself, meaning she's off scott free, likely to go meet up with Nick and Cassie. American Division wants to keep the drug, and the fact that it exists at all, away from rival Divisions of other countries. Cassie's plan is to trade the drug for Cassie's mom and take down Division. [[IndyPloy How they are going to do that isn't really known yet.]], and since the movie was not a commerical or critical success, we'll likely never know.]]

** To ''Series/TheXFiles'' episode, "Pusher".
** The marble scene in the beginning is taken almost directly from a part in Creator/TedDekker's book ''Blink'', a book where the main character can see potential futures. When he's about to be arrested, he rolls a rubber ball down the hall, timing it so that it will bounce off the right walls, causing a distraction so he and his {{Love Interest}} can get away.
* SlidingScaleOfFreeWillVsFate: of the "Prophecies as predictions based on people's intentions" variety.

* YouHaveFailedMe: Carver "pushes" one of his Sniffs to shoot himself for letting Kira escape and falling for Kira's push that caused him to kill his partner. Carver was willing to send the agent home until the agent insisted he was [[TemptingFate willing to bet his life that there was no way he can be "pushed" again]]. He may have also been genuinely worried that the guy had other implanted thoughts he didn't know about.

** Mind control being described as "pushing" someone was first used in Creator/StephenKing's ''Firestarter'', although as the power works here it's more evocative of a drug dealer "pushing".

Push is a movie about Nick (Creator/ChrisEvans), a man who lives in perpetual fear of [[MutantDraftBoard Division]] - a worldwide agency of major governments whose goal is to train and employ psychics for governmental use. Not content with their normal levels of power, the US branch of Division has been testing a [[SuperSerum drug]] to boost psychic abilities. Only one person, Kira (Camilla Belle), has been able to survive this drug, and she quickly escapes with a sample after the first test of the drug on her. Nick meets Cassie (Creator/DakotaFanning), a [[DeadpanSnarker snarky]] 13-year old who can see the future. Together, they track down Kira and the stolen sample with the hope that finding it will help them bring down Division.

The movie was poorly received by both critics and audiences, so the chance of a sequel or story continuation is miniscule at best - a prequel-set comics run and a movie is all we've got, and very likely all we'll ever get. There was [[http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=62491 a television series]] in development being written by Creator/DavidHayter at some point in 2010, but the lack of updates since then means it has fallen victim to DevelopmentHell and is effectively cancelled.

* AntiHero: The morally bankrupt type. Our introduction to Nick is him trying to cheat at dice. And failing.
* ArtisticLicenseBiology: The movie has the lead character [[spoiler:inject soy sauce directly in to his blood stream with no side effect at all.]]
* BadassFamily: The Chinese Triad we meet features a family of two [[spoiler:make that three]] Bleeders and a skilled Watcher.
%%* BadassInANiceSuit: Victor
* BaldOfEvil: Carver, one of the Sniffs (Mac)
* TheChessmaster: Both Cassie and the Pop Girl are constantly trying to prove that they're the best chessmaster in the film. Little do they know that they're really just fighting for second place. [[spoiler: The ''real'' chessmaster is Cassie's mom. See Gambit Roulette below.]]

* CompetenceZone: Averted. The parents are all far more powerful and skilled at using their powers than the younger psychics.
* CoversAlwaysLie: You see the poster on this page, where Nick telekinetically sweeps through a whole street, throwing cars and such? Yeah, that never happens. Not even close.
** Promotional images also seem to imply that [[TitleConfusion a "push" involves telekinesis]], when it actually revolves around implanting thoughts, movers being the ones capable of moving objects with their mind.

* DeathByIrony

* EvilBrit: The mercenary Stitch

* FaintingSeer: Cassie and her evil watcher counterpart have occasional flutters.
* FaceHeelTurn: [[spoiler: Kira]] is pushed into this towards the end of the film. [[spoiler:Subverted. A photo of her and Nick allows her to remember who she really is and kills Carver.]]
* FakeMemories: Pushers create them.

** [[spoiler:The entire movie was one gigantic one by Cassie's mother to get the serum into the hands of her daughter. Cassie jokes that her mom must've been planning this since before Cassie was born. Knowing that, she's probably ''right''.]]
** [[spoiler:Nick's letters are a sub-gambit of this one, and they're all improvised without any Watcher foresight, especially the one of he and Kira at Coney Island at the end. This is justified by them having dated for quite some time, and by having someone who can see the future on their side.]]

* HealingHands: It's here, but it's VERY painful, and can work in reverse.
* HimeCut: Pop Girl.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: [[spoiler: Carver]] is killed in exactly the same way that he killed a character earlier in the movie.

* HostageForMacGuffin: At the end, where Carver wants to trade Kira for the drug.

%%* TookALevelInBadass: Nick
* XanatosSpeedChess: Once Nick and Cassie realize how they can shut down Pop Girl, things change very quickly, especially when the letters come into play.
** The entire ''movie'' is like this as it's basically a MeleeATrois between two {{Chessmaster}}s and a ManipulativeBastard.

* HostageForMacGuffin

* InstantExpert: Nick has been a Mover all his life, and he sucks at it at the beginning, barely able to roll some dice. Once it becomes plot important, he suddenly get great at it. It is implied, though, that he had a lot of raw talent, and he just needed more practice or motivation. He's usually surprised when he does something fairly powerful, and he almost always does so after seeing someone else do them (such as Victor and his bullet shields and telekinetic-enhanced punches). He's also consistently a lot better at the big, uncontrolled stuff (i.e., brute force) than he is at the little, fiddly (read: precision) things.
* IntergenerationalFriendship: Between Nick and Cassie.
* KarmicDeath: Nick stays his hand and doesn't [[spoiler: kill Victor, who is killed anyway three seconds later by a Bleeder.]]
** Averted when [[spoiler: Kira]] kills [[spoiler: Carver]] in a fairly sadistic way.
* LaserGuidedAmnesia: Wipers can remove specific memories, which doubles as a way to throw off Watchers.
* LensFlare: Apparently the byproduct of two telekinetics punching each other.
%%* LittleMissBadass: Cassie.

* ManipulativeBastard: All Pushers. Especially Carver.
* ManOfWealthAndTaste: Carver.
* MasterOfIllusion: Hook, one of Nick's friends.

* [[spoiler: MemoryGambit]]- Tack on some OmniscientMoralityLicense and you essentially have a non-traceable future, since Watchers [[spoiler: work off of everyone's hypothetical plans.]]
* MenAreTheExpendableGender: Despite the relatively high total bodycount, female character deaths number exactly [[spoiler: zero]]. The two female villains [[spoiler: 3 if you count Kira]] are menacingly threatening but they're stopped right before they cross the MoralEventHorizon so the audience won't be upset:

** Pop Girl finally tracks down Cassie and pulls a gun on her [[spoiler:but the Wiper sneaks up behind her and erases her mind.]]

* MoreThanMindControl: Being Pushed is this, which [[FridgeBrilliance explains how]] [[spoiler: Nick fought off Carver's push to walk off the edge of the building]].

* NoteToSelf

* OnePersonOnePower: strictly observed.

** Watchers predict the future - or at least, the future that one intends to take. They can be countered by not knowing what you're going to do until right before you do it, and having your memories erased can stop them dead in their tracks.

** From the comic series:

* ScrewGunSafety: Some would say that if you're a telekinetic who's not very good at it, you would take extra care to make sure that the pistols you are levitating are not pointed at you when you work the slide.
** Carver pushes a Sniffer into shooting himself because he convinces him that the gun isn't loaded. What's the first rule of gun safety? "The gun is always loaded. Even when it isn't." This particular example is justified because mind control.

* SequelHook: [[spoiler: Nick and Cassie defeated the Pop Gang and the Division agents, and they have the drug. Division(America) wants to keep the drug, and its very existence, away from rival MutantDraftBoard organizations of other countries. Cassie's plan is to trade the drug for Cassie's mom and take down Division. [[IndyPloy How they are going to do that isn't really known yet.]], and since the movie was poorly received, it's likely we'll never know.]]

** Sniffers can see where any object has every been and who's used it. They get their name from how their ability works: literally by sniffing the object in a form of {{Psychometry}}.

* {{Badass}}: The fact is, Victor was simply destroying ''everything'', and if Division already has ''him'' on their team, it does not look like they even ''need'' the drug. Of course, if they made him even ''more'' super...well, then it just stops being fair. Nick also has his moments, though, and was giving Victor a run for his money near the end.
** BadassFamily: The Chinese Triad we meet features a family of two [[spoiler:make that three]] Bleeders and a skilled Watcher.
** BadassInANiceSuit: Victor
** LittleMissBadass: Cassie.
** TookALevelInBadass: Nick

* StrongAsTheyNeedToBe: Nick kept a lid on his powers to evade detection by Division so he starts off a relatively unskilled Mover. Once he shook off the cobwebs, he began to develop more finesse; his encounters with the much-stronger and infinitely more {{Badass}} Victor seem to boost his competency via AwesomenessByAnalysis to the point that in their final battle, [[spoiler:he's enough of a match to overpower Victor to nearly beat him to death.]]

* BlondGuysAreEvil: Victor

----

Push is a movie about Nick (Creator/ChrisEvans), a man who lives in perpetual fear of the US version of Division, a worldwide agency of major governments whose goal is to train psychic soldiers. To aid this, Division injects psychics with a [[SuperSerum drug]] to boost their abilities. Only one person, Kira (Camilla Belle), has been able to survive this drug, and she quickly escapes after taking the drug. Nick meets Cassie (Creator/DakotaFanning), a [[DeadpanSnarker snarky]] 13-year old who can see the future. Together, they track down Kira and a stolen syringe which contains the serum with the hope that finding it will help them bring down Division.

The movie was poorly received by both critics and audiences, so the chance of a sequel or story continuation seems unlikely. A prequel-set comics run and a movie is all we've got, and very likely all we'll ever get - there was [[http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=62491 a television series]] in development being written by Creator/DavidHayter in 2010, but the lack of updates since then means it has fallen into DevelopmentHell.

** Carver pushes a Sniffer into shooting himself because he convinces him that the gun isn't loaded. What's the first rule of gun safety? "The gun is always loaded. Even when it isn't."

* SequelHook: [[spoiler: Nick and Cassie defeated the Pop Gang and the Division agents, and they have the drug. Division(America) wants to keep the drug, and its very existence, away from rival MutantDraftBoard organizations of other countries. Cassie's plan is to trade the drug for Cassie's mom and take down Division. [[IndyPloy How they are going to do that isn't really known yet.]]]]

Push is a movie about Nick (Creator/ChrisEvans), a man who lives in perpetual fear of the US version of Division, a worldwide agency of major governments whose goal is to train psychic soldiers. To aid this, Division injects psychics with a [[SuperSerum drug]] to boost their abilities. Only one person, Kira (Camilla Belle), has been able to survive this drug, and she quickly escapes after taking the drug. Nick meets Cassie (DakotaFanning), a [[DeadpanSnarker snarky]] 13-year old who can see the future. Together, they track down Kira and a stolen syringe which contains the serum with the hope that finding it will help them bring down Division.

The movie was poorly received by both critics and audiences, so the chance of a sequl or story continuation seems unlikely. A prequel-set comics run and a movie is all we've got, and very likely all we'll ever get - there was [[http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=62491 a television series]] in development being written by DavidHayter in 2010, but the lack of updates since then means it has fallen into DevelopmentHell.

The movie was poorly received at the box office and by critics, getting a paltry 23% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It made a little over $31 million, not counting overseas and DVD sales, so a sequel is unlikely given that it had an estimated budget of $38 million. There was [[http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=62491 a television series]] in development being written by DavidHayter, but the lack of recent news means it has likely fallen into DevelopmentHell.

* HeyItsThatGuy: For MCU fans, there is [[Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger Captain America]], [[Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy Korath the Pursuer]], and [[Film/AntMan Yellowjacket]]. Victor was the BigBad in the non-MCU ''BladeTheSeries''.

* MacGuffinGirl: Kira isn't the MacGuffin ''exactly'', but she stole it, has it in her bloodstream, and is chased after by the villains as the only successful survivor of the super-psychic-serum.

* HeyItsThatGuy: For MCU fans, there is [[Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger Captain America]], [[Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy Korath the Pursuer]], and [[Film/AntMan Yellowjacket]]. Victor was the BigBad in the non-MCU [[Series/BladeTheSeries]].

** Sniffers can see where any object has every been and who's used it. They get their name from how their ability works: literally by sniffing the object in a form of psychometry.

* HeyItsThatGuy: For MCU fans, there is [[Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger Captain America]] and [[Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy Korath the Pursuer]]. Victor was the BigBad in the non-MCU [[Series/BladeTheSeries]].

* ForceAndFinesse: Nick and Victor, respectively. While Nick is capable of extremely powerful bursts of power, Victor has significantly more fine control and depth of using his powers, and completely outmatches Nick [[spoiler: until he makes the incredibly poor decision to try and trade power-enhanced blows with him. Needless to say, in a close in fight of simply trading power blows, the brute force uses (Nick) comes out on top.]]

* ShoutOut: Mind control being described as "pushing" someone was first used in Creator/StephenKing's ''Firestarter'', although as the power works here it's more evocative of a drug dealer "pushing".
** Also TheXFiles episode, "Pusher".