Chris Evans as Nick Gant in Push (2009): The Reluctant Mover
In Paul McGuigan’s Push (2009), Chris Evans plays Nick Gant, a telekinetic who has spent years hiding from a secret government program in the crowded streets of Hong Kong. His quiet life ends when a teenage clairvoyant named Cassie Holmes, played by Dakota Fanning, turns up and tells him he is needed.
The film was released in the United States on February 6, 2009, by Summit Entertainment. It was directed by McGuigan from a screenplay by David Bourla. Evans leads a cast that includes Fanning, Camilla Belle as the fugitive Kira Hudson, and Djimon Hounsou as the Division agent Henry Carver.
Who Nick Gant is
Nick is a second-generation “Mover,” meaning he can move objects with his mind. He has lived in hiding since the Division, the agency that hunts and experiments on psychics, murdered his father. He is not a trained operative. He is a man in his twenties with a powerful gift he cannot fully control and a very good reason to keep it hidden.
Cassie is a “Watcher” who sees fragments of the future. She pulls Nick into a search for Kira, a “Pusher,” someone who can plant thoughts in other minds. Kira has escaped the Division carrying a suitcase that could end its program. From there the plot spreads into a chase that takes in local gangsters and a range of other powers: Sniffs who read an object’s history by scent, Shadows who hide things from view, Wipers who erase memories, and Bleeders whose screams shatter glass.
Nick’s job in this story is to be the reluctant center. Cassie knows more than he does, Kira’s loyalties are unclear, and he spends much of the film catching up. That gave Evans a role built on weary determination and wry reaction more than on brooding.
The performance, and how it was received
Evans plays Nick as an ordinary man pulled into someone else’s war, and the film frames him as the straight man among stranger powers. The trade-off showed up in the reviews. NPR’s critic wrote that Evans could not make much of his beleaguered character, and argued that Hong Kong itself was the real star of the film.
That review praised the location shooting and the hallucinatory production design. It also compared the film to an extended episode of Heroes mixed with the lush romanticism of Wong Kar-wai. Roger Ebert awarded the film one and a half stars out of four, objecting to a plot he found convoluted.
Critical response was largely negative. The film’s Rotten Tomatoes score has hovered at roughly a quarter positive, and Metacritic gave it 36 out of 100. The film has still kept a following among viewers who came for the action. The photography of Hong Kong and the inventive fight sequences are the elements most often defended.
Where it sat in Evans’s career
When Push arrived, Evans was already known as Johnny Storm in the Fantastic Four films, and he had worked with director Danny Boyle on Sunshine (2007). Nick Gant was an early chance to carry a mid-budget genre film, with a reported budget of $38 million, rather than play in a team. It also stands out as a story about powers with real costs, which fits the tone of his later work.
The role came before his run as Steve Rogers, better known as Captain America, in the Marvel films. Seen now, Nick’s reluctant, decent hero looks like a rehearsal for the kind of character that audiences later associated with him.
Evans today
Evans’s most recent release is Sacrifice, directed by Romain Gavras, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2025 and reached Netflix on October 16, 2026. He plays Mike Tyler, a film star whose career is faltering, who is taken hostage at a charity gala. Vulture’s Bilge Ebiri wrote that the film draws on Evans’s “innate dorkiness,” the same quality that made his Steve Rogers so popular.
Deadline reported on April 29, 2026 that he had joined the crime thriller My Darling California, from writer-director Elijah Bynum, replacing Josh Brolin. He is also listed to return as Steve Rogers in Avengers: Doomsday, scheduled for December 18, 2026.
FAQ
What powers does Nick Gant have in Push?
Nick is a Mover, a telekinetic who can shift and throw objects with his mind. Because he is untrained, the film shows him struggling for control rather than commanding his gift. The rest of the team’s powers (watching, pushing, sniffing, shading and wiping) complement his.
Who plays Cassie Holmes and Kira Hudson?
Dakota Fanning plays Cassie Holmes, the 13-year-old Watcher who draws Nick into the search. Camilla Belle plays Kira Hudson, the Pusher who escapes the Division with the suitcase. Djimon Hounsou plays their pursuer, Henry Carver.
Was Push a hit with critics?
No. Reviews were mostly negative, with critics enjoying the Hong Kong settings and design but finding the story overcomplicated. Its audience since then has valued the action and the look of the film more than the plot.
Header photo: Amy Martin Photography / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0, modified: resized and blended with an AI-generated background. The person in the header is a real photo; only the background is AI-generated.
