Right at Your Door

An effective little film about a dirty bomb attack in Los Angeles
We lived in Florida during the Cuban missle crisis and instead of ducking and covering under our desks we went out in the hallway and huddled against the wall during our nuclear attack drills. When I was growing up it was pretty much taken for granted that one day the Cold War was going to go nuclear. There were movies from "On the Beach" to "Fail-safe" that played out possible scenarios for the end of the world as we knew it, and even "Star Trek" assumed that World War III was going to be a nuclear war. When "The Day After" came out Carl Sagan was on the special edition of "Nightline" that followed saying that a real nuclear winter would be much worse than what we say in that made for television...

Be Prepared If This Happens
Although produced on an independent budget, the filmmakers here have created a fantastic thriller. Set in Los Angeles, the film starts out as every day in our lives does, until that is, an unknown terrorist organization sets off a series of dirty bombs in the downtown area. Recalling the panic that set in on 9/11, our main characters don't know what to do, who to trust, or where to find credible information. What ensues is a truly scary proposition of what might happen, police declare marshall law, hospitals become traps for unwilling victims, and general chaos follows. The performance of Rory Cochrane is really what drives this tale, as he might finally get the recognition he deserves as a dramatic actor, after appearing in such films as Dazed & Confused, and A Scanner Darkly for the past 10 years, as well as CSI: Miami. The supporting cast is excellent as well, although it only takes a few poeple to drive this story, an element of its genius. I won't give away the ending, but...

claustrophobic panic
It's a kind of post 9/11 terrorist/disaster thing involving a series of dirty bombs set off in Los Angeles and the ensuing toxic fallout from them. The view is constricted to the claustrophobic panic of what one man sees and hears, so the viewer is left in the dark about a lot of things. It's a low-budget, independent type of film, but I was quite riveted by it nonetheless. Well, mostly. While I was dutifully chilled to the bone by the images, predicaments and consequences presented in the film, there were some things that didn't quite jell for me. Still, I give it thumbs up for scaring the bejesus outta me and turning my skin as cold as stone, like all good apocalyptic type stories do.

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