How would the playing fields be leveled if there was a pill that could give any ordinary
person extraordinary power?
“You’re about to witness a very rare power. Thermoreglation. This one can get a bit intense.”
That's one of the questions posed by Netflix's new original sci-fi action blockbuster Project
Power. As it turns out, the answer is anything but simple.
At the beginning of the movie, we're introduced to Robin, played by Dominique Fishback in
a star-making performance. Robin is a young drug dealer raising money for her sick mother's
medical expenses. She's peddling an intense substance recently introduced to the streets
of New Orleans referred to as Power, which imbues the user with a specific superhuman
ability for five minutes.
The catch is that everyone's power is different, so if yours ends up being spontaneous combustion,
your first dose of Power will be your last.
One of Robin's clients is Frank , a well-intentioned New Orleans Police officer played by Joseph
Gordon-Levitt who wants to use the pill to establish equality between the police and
the super-powered criminals who are wreaking havoc in his city.
"Did you take a pill today?"
"Yes."
Over the course of one night, Robin and Frank become embroiled in a shadowy conspiracy when
Robin is kidnapped by Jamie Foxx's Art, a military veteran desperate to find the people
behind Power, who have taken his daughter, Tracy.
The last act of Project Power begins after we see Art disrupt a demonstration of Power
held by Telios, the military defense contractor developing the pill. He's finally apprehended
by Frank, who has been trying to track him down after his captain, played by Courtney
B. Vance, tells him that Art is heavily involved in the distribution of Power.
However, once they're in the car together, Art tells Frank that the captain, who's clearly
in league with Telios in some way, is setting him up.
Frank is extremely skeptical of Art. A few minutes earlier, Frank told Robin not to trust
Art because he's just using her to achieve his own goals. But as Robin points out to
Frank, that's hardly unique to just Art.
"Come on Frank, we gotta help him."
"You already did 'help him.' You brought him here. You not paying attention? He's using
you!"
"What, and you don't? At least he's being honest about it."
When a Telios van shows up to intercept Frank and Art on their way to the police station,
Frank realizes that there was wisdom in Robin's statement. Even though Art has his own agenda,
he's never been dishonest about it -- and he is, indeed, telling the truth about Frank's
captain having ulterior motives.
Frank's captain betraying him is an example of the one of the main themes in Project Power,
one which Art explains to Robin halfway through the movie.
"In the real world, the power goes where it always goes — to the people who already
have it."
In this instance, the leaders of the NOPD are the people who already have power, and
they're working to keep it. Frank believes in his personal mission to keep the people
of New Orleans safe, but he realizes the people at the top of the system he works within don't
share that goal, and likely never will.
Art allows himself to be taken into custody because he knows it will get him closer to
the person at the top of the operation. This person is Gardner, played by Amy Landecker.
Thanks to a flashback, we know Gardner experimented on Art when he was an early test subject for
Project Power. She's also the one who organized the kidnapping of Tracy. Because she was born
after Telios experimented on Art, Tracy has the abilities of Power without actually having
to take a pill.
When Art is brought to Gardner on the docked ship she's operating out of, Gardner explains
her justification for kidnapping his daughter. She uses the example of Henrietta Lacks -- a
real-life Black woman who had cancer cells harvested from her body in the 1950s without
her consent or knowledge, with the cells later being used in a number of important scientific
breakthroughs. In Gardner's worldview, the ends justify the means.
"All of our greatest advancements began in darkness, major. It's up to the pioneers to
light the way."
That Gardner uses Lacks in her explanation for her motives is an important key to unlocking
the major themes of Project Power. In the United States, there's a long and terrifying
history of unethical medical experimentation on Black people and other minority communities,
such as the Tuskegee Study.
In the world of Project Power, Telios is continuing that history by experimenting on Art's daughter,
Tracy, and using New Orleans, a majority Black city, as one of its testing grounds for the
pill. Gardner justifies this by repeating the Telios line that Power represents "the
next step in human evolution."
But who's set to reap the rewards of that evolution? As Art pointed out earlier, the
power will remain in the hands of people like Gardner.
Now that Art has been captured, he's restrained in the hull of the ship. Earlier, we learned
from a Telios representative that the powers people get from the pill are inspired by adaptations
found within the animal kingdom, such as that of a chameleon.
We also heard from Art that he'd only ever used his power once because it was so intense
that it almost killed him. Now that he's tied up, Art explains to the guard who's assigned
to watch over him that his powers are those of the pistol shrimp. While the pistol shrimp
is small, it's able to shoot a jet of bubbles with such force that it produces a flash of
extreme heat and sound, destroying everything in its path.
“Little bitty guy look harmless. But hit you so fast, it vaporizes the water around
him.”
Art manages to escape the guard without using his power, with the help of Robin and Frank,
who have infiltrated the ship.
Robin locates Tracy and breaks her out of the cell she's being kept in. They reunite
with Art and Frank, but the foursome is eventually surrounded by Gardner's henchmen.
With no other way out, Art takes a Power pill and lays waste to the Telios soldiers. Art's
power is immensely destructive and so difficult to control that it ends up killing him. However,
he's not dead for long, as Tracy is able to revive him using her own innate abilities.
Art's particular power is rich with metaphor. As a single person struggling against a giant
system, he's functionally as small as the pistol shrimp but he's also just as mighty
when he needs to be.
Earlier in the film, we learn that, despite the fact that she sells Power pills, Robin
hasn't ever actually taken one herself because she thinks they are too dangerous.
Out of the three lead characters, Robin is the only one who doesn't come from a law enforcement
background, like Frank, or military background, like Art.
In fact, Robin is someone who exists almost completely outside of any kind of formal power
structure. She's flunking out of school, her job is entirely off the books, and her life's
dream is to become a rapper, a goal that relies on her own skills and hard work to achieve.
Frank and Art have been enmeshed in the exact power structures that we see being corrupted
by the Power pills, but Robin hasn't. Furthermore, while both Frank and Art use Power to achieve
their goals, Robin refuses because she doesn't believe the risk is worth the reward.
After they've escaped from the ship, Art thanks Robin for helping him reunite with Tracy and
gives her a line of advice.
"There's something great inside you, Robin”
“use it."
Here, the film seems to be drawing a clear distinction between a power that's acquired
from an outside source and the power that comes from within. Yes, the pills give Art
extreme abilities, but they're so strong that he can't use it without killing himself in
the process. Similarly, Frank uses Power to fight back against criminals, but every pill
he buys is profiting Telios and only leading to more chaos.
Robin, on the other hand, doesn't need to corrupt herself to use her innate powers of
perseverance, compassion, strength, and street smarts.
In the end, Project Power reaches a relatively happy conclusion.
“Think you can heal a gunshot wound?” All four of our heroes manage to escape the
ship and make it to dry land. Frank reveals that he's going to leak to a journalist what
he knows about Telios and the corruption within the police department. Meanwhile, Art and
Tracy ride off to begin a new life, while Robin reunites with her mother and reveals
she has the money to pay for her operation.
Of course, at the end of any big summer blockbuster there's an inevitable question: Will there
be a sequel? Project Power doesn't explicitly set up a sequel, but it certainly lays some
groundwork for one.
When we learn a bit more about Telios, we find that the pill itself is actually just
an early prototype and that part of the reason they're testing it out on the citizens of
New Orleans is so they can develop another, more stable, version. And although Gardner
and her ship are destroyed at the end of the movie, it's clear that the forces behind Power
are much larger than one operation.
Before he leaves, Frank asks Art one final question and he gets a telling answer.
"Do you think this is really over?"
"For me, it is."
There seems to be an implication that the story of Project Power is, in fact, just the
beginning of a much bigger fight.
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