DON’T DIE: THE MAN WHO WANTS TO LIVE FOREVER
(director/writer: Chris Smith; cinematographer: Chris Smith; editors: Andy Laas, Paul, Trewartha, Daniel Koehler; music: Nick Chuba, Matt Cohen, Leopold Ross; cast: Mac Davis, Bryan Johnson; Runtime: 88; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Chris Smith, Daniel Koehler, Ashlee Vance; Netflix; 2025)
“An uncritical mad scientist doc.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
A doc about how the super-rich are trying to find ways to live forever or slow down the aging process. It’s directed by Chris Smith (“Biggest Heist Ever”/”Wham!”) as something to be taken seriously, as it tells about a rich tech entrepreneur with unlimited resources who is obsessed with the ageing process and turning back the clock. The uncritical mad scientist documentary veers between being a promotional film on maintaining a healthy lifestyle and a telling of how the 47-year-old divorced father with a teenage son, Bryan Johnson, tries to live forever by fully indulging in the latest innovative health products on the market.
The film also focuses on how our healthcare system has failed the people.
It mainly tells us about the eccentric millionaire who uses his vast resources to reverse the aging process through an assortment of experimental and traditional treatments advertised to restore his youthful physical appearance again.
Johnson is the founder and CEO of Braintree, who made a killing in mobile and web payment systems and then sold his company for a big profit to PayPal in 2013. He’s a venture capitalist who has devoted his entire life to finding ways to live a long and healthy life.
The film interviews medical and science experts on the aging process, who comment on Johnson’s approach and rip into his methods when they see fit.
It’s mostly a puff piece, covering his workouts in his home gym, his skin therapy sessions, his strict whole-food diet, his daily intake of at least 100 pill supplements, his use of stool samples and that he sleeps with a monitor attached to his penis (I got a rise over that one). He calls the process the Blueprint Protocol. I have another name for it that’s not so flattering.
REVIEWED ON 2/2/2025 GRADE: C
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