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"Patient Seventeen" is a fascinating documentary on alien implants that suffers from over-dramatic directing and editing, but still provides an interesting documentation of the removal of "offworld implant technology."
The film is part of director Jeremy Corbell's investigative "Extraordinary Beliefs" series. The topic enough is of interest to the UFO community and should pull in curious non-believing Netflix viewers, but the film's contrived opening and the need to zoom in on the subject's breakfast food and mundane activities like picking up your keys force what is already an intriguing premise. Other questionable shots of crickets creepily scurrying to eerie music makes you wonder if this film is going for serious documentary or some art piece horror realism?
Once you get past the directorial style, and strip it down to what is being documented you get a great look into the late Dr. Roger Leir and his work on the film's subject ("patient seventeen") and the scientific methods to remove the implants. The film addresses many issues like the craziness and mistrust that develops within Ufology, the elemental breakdown of the sophisticated nano-technological devices that can't be from this earth, how UFOs shake the foundations of faith and how patient seventeen described his encounters with aliens as "cruel" and wished for "payback" against the "gangsters..alien gangsters." This all plays up to the "sinister alien" theories that are sometimes birthed from the abductee's reaction to being disturbed or the physical pain associated with the implant.
With a run time of a little over an hour, this documentary poses a lot of questions and gives an in-depth look to at the idea of alien-implant technology.
-By MIKE DAMANTE