DOE is not entirely original in its ideas or presentation but, in an effort to avoid complete spoilers as much as possible while still at least trying to say SOMETHING, it is an excellent version of what it is. As a hint, it shares thematic attributes with, for example, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE.
The plot: a homeless-looking man wakes up on a park bench with no recollection of who he is or any other contextual information about his life. Attempts to identify him draw a blank.
Unusually, this man, who chooses the name John, shows an astonishing ability with languages. He admits to knowing 30-something languages, although the reality, which he hides to avoid being thought a freak, is that he knows hundreds of languages.
Over the course of the next 8 years, John builds a remarkable life for himself. He obtains two PhD's that are language-related, writes a book, becomes a college professor in languages, marries the sister of the detective who tried to find out who he was, and has a little girl. In short, he builds a pleasant and rewarding life.
And then one day a badly disheveled, dirty and apparently profoundly unhinged man shows up in his lecture room after class and claims to be another variant of whatever John is. This man, Lucas, doesn't have an ability with languages like John, but is instead a math genius at a level likely exceeding Einstein. Well, one John may be a fluke but two is a pattern, and this man is showing terrible signs of physical and mental degeneration. And when John goes to visit Lucas at his hotel to dig into the situation more deeply, it's a very short meeting; with a semi-automatic paintbrush, Lucas paints the walls with the contents of his head right there in the hotel room.
This begins a journey of discovery for John to uncover who and what he is with the underlying motivating concern that he may end up like Lucas.
Most of the meat of DOE is John's search of self-discovery and it's a passable mystery ride.
Some of the details of the discoveries are a little weak: happening to pass under a blacklight, John discovers what are apparently the left-over shadows of tattoos which must have once covered most of his body. One of the core elements of the mystery is the fact that John's memory has not only been erased, but his life history in databases and files has been so thoroughly obliterated by somebody or something that for all practical purposes, John never existed before that day he woke up on the park bench.
However, thinking about it as a viewer, it's practically inevitable that John was going to pass beneath a blacklight sooner or later; blacklight stamps are ubiquitous at all sorts of entertainment venues. That he would discover these tattoos was therefore also almost inevitable, and since practically every law enforcement agency in the country all but makes a fetish of tracking tattoos for their criminal content, this is a giant red arrow for John to follow in discovering his previous life. According to the storyline, virtually the first informational door opened but a crack on the mystery of John's origins immediately coughs up everything about his history.
So the plot line is a little low rent and the overall movie is not the stuff of blockbusters, but it's a good, solid watch and while the individual elements of the story are not new in and of themselves, to the best of my knowledge, DOE represents a unique instance of them being combined in this particular way.
Given the details of the situation, the stark contrast between John's discovered past, replete with the literal stains of evil all over his body, and the decent, moral and useful person he now believes himself to be, the angst and shame is so thick you could cut it with a knife. The reality of John's past is also significantly and uniquely painful given the nature of his family circumstances.
Be aware, the movie has a sad ending in that John's ultimate destiny was a foregone conclusion before the story began. We and John just didn't know it when we started this trip. But, for at least 8 years, John did have a nearly perfect life which he never would have had had circumstances not taken him down this unusual path.
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