Thoughtcrimes

Thoughtcrimes is a Made for TV Movie that aired on USA Network in 2003. It was originally intended to be the pilot for a TV series, but it never got that far.

The story follows Freya McAllister (Navi Rawat), who hears voices in her head. She is diagnosed as schizophrenic and spends nine years in a mental institution until a government scientist (Peter Horton) realizes that she is actually telepathic. After training with the National Security Administration, she is sent on a mission with Agent Brendan Dean (Joe Flanigan) to track down a terrorist.


 * A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: Hearing other people's voices in her head makes Freya go crazy and get committed to an asylum.
 * Blessed with Suck: Freya's telepathic powers are very much this for most of the movie. She is able to hear the thoughts of those around her whether she chooses too or not and the constant bombardment drives her into a catatonic state. Even after she gains control she still has trouble in crowds and on top of that it would seem that the majority of peoples thoughts are negative, paranoid and downright depressing to listen to.
 * Chekhov's Gun: Brendan possesses photgraphic memory which is referenced a couple times in little blink and you'll miss them kind of moments but then becomes an important plot point about 15 minutes towards the end of the movie when Freya asks him to remember a specific event then uses her telepathy to see the event allowing her to notice something odd that had been initially overlooked.
 * Mood Whiplash: Agent Brendan first appearance could be considered this. The film suddenly transitions from a tense scene between Freya and Dr Welles in the hospital room of a dying man to the NSA field office where Agent Brendan is spilling cough medicine on his shirt and acting like an incompetant goofball.
 * Papa Wolf: Freya's dad comes accross as this despite only appearing in a brief scene nefore dying offscreen. Dr Michael Welles is also this despite not being related to Freya. He is very protective of Freya not wanting to put her in the field and even goes so far as to order his immediate superior to remove his flunkies from the room simply because Freya doesnt like what they are thinking. His verbal beat down of Brendan later in the movie is so pap wolf and a crowning moment of awesome for his character.
 * The Professor: Dr Welles is this. He is considered an expert on telepaths by the NSA, has invented a method of blocking telepaths from reading his own mind and also has come up with some sound methods for teaching a telepath how to conciously control their powers all of which he applies to Freya with great success. Why or how he was able to figure all this out despite never having come accross any telepaths other than Freya is never explained and when one considers that the only other telepaths mentioned besides Freya are all long dead historical figures like Rasputin and Joan of Ark he begins to look like a mild form of eccentric mentor.
 * Telepathy: Of the accidental mind reading variety.