Gripping but totally unrealistic and inaccurate

Rating: 5/10 (25 February 2014)

I just watched this movie for the first time tonight.
At first glance, it is a boring movie. But as it continues on, he has a way of speaking and doing things that is very unusual and quite enticing.
As the movie goes on, it becomes increasingly interesting, as characters are developed in a lovely and elegant way, and, as someone who had deliberately avoided this movie for the past 13 years, I found myself quite intrigued as to the point of the movie.
First off, his behaviour seemed to me to be like that of a typical autistic, and I wondered if that was what his secret was. And when he was accosted and put into the mental hospital, I thought that he was a misunderstood autistic. And yet, apparently, this was all a secret as he was actually schizophrenic. Hrm. Nup. I don't think so.
The problem I found, and this was a big problem, was when we discovered what his delusions were.
The roommate, fair enough. You could believe that. Much like the imaginary friend out of Fight Club, but it was really him. And his niece too, fair enough. Believable delusions. An intelligent man could fall for that. Only problem is that neither of them ever age. But that can be argued around.
The problem came with the Department of Defence delusion.
Now, fair enough, he could be called to work for the Pentagon. That kind of thing happens, and they often call members of the public to help them out. We all know that that happens, and a mathematician being called in to do code breaking is not out of the question.
Being asked to decipher newspaper codes is fair enough too. It is well documented that spy agencies use newspapers to send encrypted messages. But they use advertising - not articles. The complexity of getting a journalist involved is virtually unheard of in the intelligence community. But the idea of entire newspapers across 20 or 30 publications all publishing fake parts of articles to send encoded messages is a level of complexity that just simply wouldn't happen. One corrupt journalist maybe. But not that many. It just isn't logical.
If he was just looking at advertising, fair enough. From what I have read, they usually use "lost in love" adverts to send messages. It was even shown on "Mission Impossible". It is easy as pie to put advertising like that in, you can do it anonymously and nobody checks what you put in. You could also put in fake used car ads and other kinds of advertising. But not articles.
Not only was he looking in the wrong area, but the level of what he was looking at was all wrong too. In "Mission Impossible" they used newspapers to say that they were safe and in the prescribed safe house. In "Kick Ass" they used a website to say that they needed help. That is the kind of thing that thy are going to put in - not talking about where to bomb. Things of that level of security would be done behind closed doors face to face. It just isn't believable.
And John Nash was a smart man so why didn't he work that out? That delusion was unbelievable. And I can't believe that he would fall for it. If it was to try to find bombers when they got out, fair enough. Trying to find bombers when they got out, using advertisements, fair enough. But just the level, well, surely he knew enough about the secret service to know that that just isn't believable.
And the thing is that once he was shown evidence he should have been convinced - yet he still fell for it again. Smart enough fellow but he fell for it in spite of evidence. The evidence couldn't have been planted.
The other thing is that the Department of Defence delusion was not a happy one. It was an upsetting delusion. When he discovered that his friendly roommate was a delusion, it would have upset him as that happiness would not be there. But on discovering that the horrible Department of Defence guy was fake he should have been happy. But he was not. Not happy because he is not as important? But he should have at least been happy that his life was not in danger.
The only positive part was that he had managed to treat his illness without medication or help from anyone else. We know that this is possible with regular physical illnesses like the flu, and it is very encouraging to think that he could have done that.
Only problem is that it isn't true. In spite of refusing medication, he still went back to hospital several times since he began trying to treat his mental illness without medication.
Not a good movie, and I feel a bit sad for people that fell for this. Gripping and all but so unrealistic and just not true to his life.