Remember hairdo'd Malcom Gladwell's pop philosophy bestseller Blink? It was all about the power of the mind or something, and now they're making a bizarre-sounding movie out of it. Starring the increasingly bizarre Al Pacino.

The movie's been on the table for some time now after Leonardo DiCaprio optioned it. Presumably he's attached as a cocky young fella who can "read" people in a blink of an eye. We read the script a while back and it's just... bad. Pacino will play DiCaprio's papa, a scheming finance mucky-muck who tries to reach out to his estranged kid when he needs his particular brand of expertise to "read" judges so he can win a lawsuit. But this wunderkind is not so smart to know that the girl he's fucking is 16.

Stephen Gaghan, he of Syriana and Traffic, got $2 million to write the strange thing for Universal. But now it's being produced as an indie and now with Pacino's involvement, it just reeks of a Devil's Advocate rehash. What with the menacing father wrangling his headstrong son to do wicked, magical things. In that earlier film Pacino was the devil. And these days, what with the economy and all, a Tri-State finance guy is basically the same thing. So basically the movie is based on the book in name only, a thin little launching pad to discuss issues of fathers and sons, abilities and responsibilities. With, you know, mind reading.

[Galleycat]