ATOMIC BLONDE : Thursday 27th July 2017

I saw 'ATOMIC BLONDE' at an advance screening at my local multiplex one week ahead of its Australian release on 3rd August. Directed by David Leitch in his first solo Directorial outing having served as the uncredited Co-Director on 'John Wick' with Chad Stahelski and having served his time over the years as Stunt Co-ordinator and Stuntman on more action films than you can poke a stick at, and in the capacity as Second Unit Director on a good many also, and occasional Producer and Actor too. Next up for this new Director is 'Deadpool 2' currently filming and due in 2018. This film is based on the 2012 graphic novel titled 'The Coldest City' by Antony Johnston and Sam Hart, stars a strong cast and a thumping '80's soundtrack and cost US$30M to make. The film has so far garnered generally positive Reviews.

The film opens with the death of MI6 Agent James Gasciogne (Sam Hargrave) at the hands of ruthless KGB Agent Yuri Bakhtin (Johannes Johannesson) who then proceeds to remove his wristwatch - for it contains microfilm detailing a List of covert field operatives working in the USSR, that is a very valuable commodity in this 1989 cold war era action spy thriller set on the eve of the Berlin Wall coming down and with it the shifting of superpower alliances. Fast forward ten days and in an ice cold bath emerges a very bruised, beaten-up and battered Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron) - a top level MI6 Agent.

She steps out of her bath, pours herself a neat Stoli over rocks, gulps it down and makes herself presentable. She then appears in an interrogation room with MI6 Executive Eric Gray (Toby Jones) and CIA Agent Emmett Kurzfeld (John Goodman) to discuss the intricacies of her very recent mission to Berlin from which she has just returned, and is wearing the battle scars to prove it. The day following Gasciogne's death she is dispatched to Berlin by her superiors to recover the List, now missing in action, and identify, locate and dispense with a known Double Agent referred to as 'Satchel' who has been selling intelligence to the Ruskies for years, and who is believed to be responsible for betraying Gasciogne.

Upon arriving in Berlin, supposedly undercover and incognito, she is ambushed by KGB Agents working for a a lynchpin of the KGB and a generally unscrupulous kinda guy that you don't wanna cross, Aleksander Bremovych (Roland Moller). After a set piece involving Broughton's red stiletto and close quarter hand to hand combat inside a speeding car that doesn't end so well for the Russian's, she is met with very unceremoniously by her contact in Berlin - Agent David Percival (James McAvoy). Percival has been living and working in Berlin for the last ten years or so and is so deep undercover that there's not much he doesn't know about what's what and who's who in Berlin - on both the east and west sides of the Wall.

Later, having made slow progress with her investigations Broughton has a snoop around Gasciogne's apartment looking for any clues. She discovers a photograph of him and Percival indicating that the two men were close friends - a fact earlier denied by Percival. East German Police Officers arrive on the scene of the apartment and another close quarter hand to hand fist fight ensues with Broughton dispensing with them pesky Police types with her usual aplomb using a length of hose pipe and sundry household implements lying around the abode. She comes to realise that only Percival knew that she was going to Gasciogne's apartment, and suspects him of double crossing her to the authorities, and for potentially being Satchel.

Bakhtin meanwhile intends to sell the List to the highest bidder. Percival, having received word of this, arranges a rendezvous and then sticks a screwdriver in Bakhtin's forehead killing him outright stone dead, and takes the List for himself. Broughton in the meantime has met up with a sultry young undercover French Agent Delphine Lasalle (Sofia Boutella) and the two are instantly drawn to each other. Percival meets with Bremovych to sell the List to him, but unknown to the pair is that Lasalle is covertly photographing their meeting.

Amongst all of this is a Soviet defector known as Spyglass (Eddie Marsan) who stole the List in the first place and is the only person to have sighted the contents of the List and has all its data committed to his memory. Spyglass also is a Stasi Officer. Percival has agreed to escort Spyglass and his family across the border into West Berlin, but during a large protest rally which Broughton, Percival and Spyglass use as cover to effect their escape to the West, Percival shoots Spyglass and sends word to Bremovych's men that the injured Spyglass and Broughton are on the run. More hand to hand combat follows, and all the while Spyglass is bleeding out from his shot to the stomach. The pair end up in  car which gets chased down the streets of East Berlin by Bremovych's henchmen. Eventually the car is shunted into the river - Broughton swims free but is unable to free a pinned down Spyglass who drowns in the passenger seat as the car sinks into the River.

After this fracas, Percival visits Lasalle, and kills her to cover his own tracks but not before the French Agent was able to stab Percival twice. Lorraine arrives just after Percival has left, discovering the dead body of Lasalle and an envelope with her name on it containing the covert photographs taken of Percival meeting with Bremovych, proving in her mind that Percival is Satchel. After Percival patches up his wounds, he sets his safe house alight and attempts to flee the city under cover of darkness. Broughton tracks him down, shoots him dead and removes the wristwatch containing the List.

Back in the present day and still in the interrogation room where Broughton has been dutifully recounting all the facts surrounding her Berlin assignment to Gray and Kurzfeld, she presents the photographs and an audio recording that she spliced together herself that show that Percival was Satchel. She also denies all knowledge of the whereabouts of the List, forcing MI6 to shut down the case.

Three days later and Broughton meets with Bremovych in a Paris hotel suite, and she reveals herself to be Satchel, and in possession of the List, which she hands over to the Russian mobster. Bremovych knows however, that he has been set up and has his three henchmen and a 'cleaner' enter the room to dispense with Broughton and dispose of her body. Using a pistol concealed in an ice bucket, Broughton instead dispenses with the three henchmen and the cleaner, and then puts a bullet in Bremovych's head, but not before revealing first that she has been playing all sides along from the get go. Broughton then boards a private jet, where she meets Kurzfeld revealing herself to be a mole planted by the CIA, and hands over to him the wristwatch containing the List, before the pair depart for Langley . . . job done!

There a lot to like about this film - the pounding soundtrack featuring many late '80's greats including Depeche Mode, New Order, Public Enemy, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Cure, Blondie, Duran Duran, David Bowie, George Michael and Nena; the well choreographed action fight sequences; the performances by McAvoy who chews up the screen and the dialogue, and Theron too proving herself to be a bona fide kick ass female action star; and the attention to detail in capturing the mood, the fashion, the sounds of the era. But for all of that I swear that Lorraine Broughton must be John Wick's Mum and she taught him everything she knows, because in the intense gun play and the close quarter fight scenes there are plenty of similarities with John Wick's previous two instalments. The plot we have seen before too (1996's 'Mission : Impossible') and as such it's pretty standard fare, that is saved from its predictability by the stylish and fast paced action. The film has so far grossed US$25M and I guess if it gets enough bums on seats, there is scope for a follow-on instalment.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

KONG : SKULL ISLAND : Tuesday 14th March 2017.

I saw 'KONG : SKULL ISLAND' in the week. Wanting to catch a movie for which I could leave my brain at the door, I saw this offering in 3D because it was the only session that suited my timing. I wasn't disappointed by the first point, but I was for the second and maybe because 3D has been done to death now that it is no longer the novelty that it once was, and let me tell you 3D does little for this film beyond what you would expect. That said, the film does have other redeeming features.

In 84 years of film making history, 'King Kong' has featured countless times in live action and animated forms, in dramatic thrillers and cheesy send ups, on his own or battling some other equally menacing foe. 'King Kong' first mesmerised audiences back in 1933 by the remarkable stop-motion effects of Willis O'Brien, and a story that began on Skull Island, somewhere near Indonesia where as well as Kong, dinosaurs and giant insects also roamed the wild undiscovered landscape. In this origin story Kong is tracked down by filmmaker Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) and falls for Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) culminating in the classic closing sequence atop the Empire State Building from which Kong eventually falls to his death. On the strength of this film, 'Son of Kong' was immediately put into production and released later on in 1933. 'Mighty Joe Young' followed in 1949 also featuring Robert Armstrong, and remade in 1998 starring Bill Paxton and Charlize Theron. Then courtesy of Japanese cinema, came 'King Kong vs. Godzilla' in 1962 and 'King Kong Escapes' in 1967. 1976 saw the Dino De Laurentiis produced remake 'King Kong' and that same year the Brits released the send up of all King Kong movies with 'Queen Kong'. 'King Kong Lives' was released in 1986 and Directed by John Guillermin who also Directed the 1976 film. Peter Jackson delivered us 'King Kong' in 2005 with all the modern day cutting edge technical wizardry he could throw at his three time Oscar winning film that brought in US$550M at the global Box Office. And so in 2017 we have another King Kong offering Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts, made on a budget of US$185M and starring an ensemble cast and featuring a raft load of special effects and filmed in northern Vietnam, Hawaii and on Australia's Gold Coast. It has so far taken US$163M, and has garnered generally positive Reviews.

Set in the early '70's a secret organisation called 'Monarch' locate an island that is shrouded in mystery and is said to contain several new species. That island is named 'Skull Island' because from the air the island resembles the shape of a skull in profile. Enter Bill Randa (John Goodman) who works for Monarch who sets up the expedition to go boldly where no man has gone before. He and colleague Houston Brooks (Corey Hawkins) - a young geologist, Yale University graduate and well known for his ground breaking work on seismology seek the funding support from Senator Willis (Richard Jenkins) who reluctantly gives it. In turn Randa and Brooks recruit James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston) a former British Air Services Captain who saw time in Vietnam and who has a particular set of tracking and survival skills. Also hired is Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson) who leads the Sky Devils helicopter squadron who have to chopper in the expedition team. And then there's Mason Weaver (Brie Larson) a pacifist photojournalist who has an affinity with nature and the environment.

Pretty soon, the team are assembled and are en route via cargo ship to Skull Island and into the unknown. They get their briefing, military style, and as they approach, the order is given to man the helicopters and negotiate their way through the islands own weather system which sees the island shrouded in thick storm clouds. For Packard and his team of hardened Vietnam War vets, this is a walk in the park, and what could possibly go wrong with a few lightning strikes and a little wet weather? How wrong could they be?

After successfully negotiating the surrounding storm front the fleet of choppers emerge into sudden clear blue skies, sunshine and lush tropical islands below - a picture of paradise lost! Randa and Packard give the order to Brooks to release the seismic charges and they detonate in the verdant forests below shaking the ground with explosion after explosion. This draws the attention of a certain giant bipedal ape the like of which no man has ever witnessed before, and one by one 'Kong' plucks the helicopters out of the sky, swatting them like flies and sending them crashing down to the dense forest floor below. Many are destroyed resulting in those that survived being split into two groups.

After burying their dead, the group containing Conrad, Weaver and Brooks and young Monarch biologist San Lin (Jing Tian) amongst a few others, stumble across a deserted ancient looking village. Venturing inside they are met with local Iwi natives and Hank Marlow (John C. Reilly) who was shot down over the island in a aerial dogfight 28 years earlier during WWII and has been on the island ever since despite his eight attempts to get of it. He has been befriended by the Iwi's, has lived with them all this time, and has learned a thing or two about the island, and it's giant animal life - friendly and harmless, and not so!

Marlow tells the group that Kong is the island's guardian and is worshipped as a god by the natives for protecting them from 'Skullcrawlers'. These reptilian underground lizard monsters slaughtered Kong's parents and ancestors, leaving him as the last of his kind. Marlow also tells them that Kong only attacked the helicopters to prevent the bombs from awakening the largest Skullcrawler, and therefore protecting the locals from it. After being welcomed by the Iwi who take the group back to their heavily fortified village (for protection from the Skullcrawlers, not Kong), and learning more of their culture and beliefs, the group head out on a motor boat that Marlow spent six years building out of salvaged parts from his WWII downed plane. In the meantime, Conrad has an up close and personal encounter with some of the wildlife present on the island!

Needing to reunite with the second group and rendezvous at a designated time with a resupply team in the islands north, Conrad and his group disembark their boat upstream in search for Randa, Packard and his men. They reunite, but Packard is insistent that they continue to search for missing right hand man, Jack Chapman (Tony Kebbell). Little do they know that Chapman was eaten by a Skullcrawler earlier on. Conrad leads the team into the 'Forbidden Zone' - a former battleground and now graveyard containing the skeleton remains of Kong's ancestors.

The Skullcrawler that killed Chapman emerges and attacks, devouring Randa in a moment of lost concentration as he played with his camera. Many of Packards soldiers are massacred too, before Weaver kills it by setting off an explosion. Packard blames Kong for the deaths of his men and wants vengeance. He retrieves seismic explosives from one of his downed helicopters to lure Kong into a trap and kill him using napalm.  Conrad in turn leads the non-military group back to the boat so they can rendezvous with the resupply team in time.

The groups now separated again, with Packard vowing to destroy the giant ape in a ball of fire, and Conrad working back to meet up with the boat. While out scouting the surrounding lie of the land to get their bearings from a high peak with which to look down, Conrad and Weaver come face to face with Kong. Sensing that Kong is not the bad guy here, they resolve to do what they can to save him, to which Marlow staunchly agrees. 

As Kong turns away from Conrad and Weaver his attention is grabbed by fires and explosions set by Packard to lure the ape out into the open, and engulf him in napalm flame. Packard is successful in bringing Kong down, but he's not out. Meanwhile a standoff ensues as Conrad and Weaver arrive at the scene just before Packard is about to butcher Kong once and for all, using more explosives. The group is attacked by the dominant Skullcrawler, giving Kong enough time to recover his senses and stand on his two feet. As Packard is set to detonate the explosives taking out Kong, so Kong stamps on him with his giant size 38 feet!

As Conrad, Weaver and Marlow seek their escape back to the boat and a waiting Brooks and Lin, they are pursued by the Skullcrawler. At which point Kong arrives to their aid, and an epic battle ensues between the two giant creatures. Kong prevails needless to say by ripping out the Skullcrawlers guts through its mouth at the end of its elongated forked tongue. The group make their getaway with Kong looking on, he then turns and walks away. 

In a post credits sequence, Conrad and Weaver are held in detention and interrogated by Monarch officials, and Skull Island expedition survivors Brooks and Lin in a bunker at some undisclosed location, watched from behind a one way window. Conrad and Weaver are told that Kong is not the only monster to roam the world, and are shown archive film of cave paintings depicting Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra, and Ghidorah. This sets up the already announced Legendary Pictures 'MonsterVerse' and their planned May 2020 release of the 'Godzilla vs. Kong' film.

I enjoyed this film, but it is everything you would expect it to be. A simple somewhat implausible popcorn story that sees strong enough performances from the principle cast, but which are overshadowed by the special effects, the action set pieces, the enormity of Kong (delivered expertly though motion capture by Terry Notary), and the other creatures that share Kong's world. There is a high body count with bodies getting eaten, trampled on, thrown asunder and dismembered, and the film runs along at a solid pace without any melodramatic interludes. Sure 'Kong : Skull Island' stands tall in the pantheon of better 'King Kong' film fare in its 84 year history, but not tall enough to outshine its original predecessor. Worth a look on the big screen nonetheless.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

PATRIOTS DAY : Tuesday 14th February 2017.

'PATRIOTS DAY' is another real life dramatic thriller Co-Written for the screen and Directed by Peter Berg who also brought us last years 'Deepwater Horizon' and 'Lone Survivor' in 2013 which both also starred, like this offering, his go to actor for playing the uniformed ordinary everyman caught up in extraordinary circumstances - Mark Wahlberg. Based on the book 'Boston Strong' by Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge this tells the story of the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing. Costing US$45M to make the film has so far recovered US$38M since its US release at Christmas time. The film has garnered generally positive Reviews from critics and film goers alike.

The film opens up with Boston Police Department Sergeant Tommy Saunders (Mark Wahlberg) busting down a door with his leg to get to a drug dealer inside a seedy downtown apartment. The bust goes according to plan, except that Saunders has hyper-extended his leg and now walks with a limp and a knee brace for the rest of the film. Immediately following the bust his superior officer, Commissioner Ed Davis (John Goodman) arrives and orders that Saunders reports for Marathon Supervision duties the next day wearing his Police Uniform. He tries to argue back but is quickly brought down a peg by Davis reminding him of some earlier misdemeanour for which he is serving out time on dead beat duties, and tomorrow is his last day of servitude and then he has a clean slate again thereafter. He arrives back home in the early hours of the morning having had a few beers with the boys, wakes his wife Carol (Michelle Monaghan) who dismisses him, and settles onto the sofa with another beer - he has to be up for Marathon duty in less than five hours. The next day, April 15th 2013, with his Police Uniform neatly pressed and high viz jacket on, the pair kiss and bid their farewells.

The next day cuts to an apartment where radical Islam brothers Tamerlan Tsarnaev (Themo Melikidze) and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (Alex Wolff) are making final preparations for a bomb attack on the Boston Marathon. Using home made devises loaded with all manner of harm inflicting shrapnel, they load the improvised explosive devices into two back-packs and make off for their destination. We trace their journey to the proximity of the finish line, negotiating their way through the crowds of onlookers and revellers out enjoying the Patriots Day public holiday. They weave in and out of spectators young and old, security personnel, Police, and other officials and then lay their back packs at their feet, turn around and depart from whence they came. No one suspects a thing. Pacing up and down the street meanwhile is Tommy Saunders taking it all in and sharing a joke with his on-duty fellow Police Officers. Then boom, as an explosion rips through the crowd just a block away quickly followed by another with smoke billowing out from the side of the street close to the finish line.

With widespread panic all around, Saunders and his fellow Officers are close at hand to issue orders, call in all necessary emergency support and provide assistance to the injured. It's a scene of carnage as the low positioned bombs radiated out their deadly shrapnel on most victims from the waist down. There are badly lacerated legs, ankles and feet, and severed lower limbs lying on the blood soaked pavement - it's a picture of death and destruction. We follow ambulance crews and paramedics attending to the injured and needy and then move to several hospitals where emergency surgery is being performed to amputate legs - on young husband and wife Patrick Downes (Christopher O'Shea) and Jessica Kensky (Rachel Brosnahan) separated after the blast and taken unconscious to separate hospitals.

Quickly afterwards various law enforcement authorities began to gather at the scene while the emergency services go about their business. With Saunders giving orders to his fellow Police Officers on the ground, so arrives Commissioner Ed Davis, with FBI Special Agent Richard DesLauriers (Kevin Bacon) who survey the fall out and determine if this was a terrorist attack. Upon initial inspection DesLauriers is uncertain, but his mind is soon made up when he picks up a cluster of small blood soaked ball bearings. At this point DesLauriers assumes command and is in charge of operations. For now though he places a widespread embargo on any communication with the press or the media about a possible terrorist attack pending investigations and to avoid the news frenzy associated with acts of terror, especially on American soil.

Within no time a Command Centre is established in an abandoned warehouse where all manner of technological hardware, state of the art software, a reconstruction of the street scape and blast zone, and a whole army of analysts, surveillance experts and officials are mobilised to track down whoever did this. They begin by tapping into every camera lining the streets and those inside shops, cafes, bars and restaurants; using all the abandoned mobile phones from the scene and scanning text messages, photos and videos; and talking to witnesses at the scene, including those hospitalised. Saunders goes home to his wife, emotionally distraught at the sights he has witnessed over the preceding fourteen hours or so. In no time however, he receives a call to come into the Command Centre. There Saunders knowledge of the city and camera locations is put to the test as a person of interest is identified from the footage of the blast zone immediately before the explosions. Tracking the suspects possible whereabouts they trace back his journey in an attempt to get a clear photograph of the individual and any accomplice. It's not long before they do!

With clear photos of the two suspected bombers DesLauriers remains reluctant to go to the press without further hard evidence, but is hand is forced when Fox News announces that they have leaked photos of the suspects that they are going to release on their news channels soon. With photos of the perpetrators out there on all the news channels, the authorities hope that the people of Boston will come forward with information leading to a prompt capture . . . but it doesn't happen.

Meanwhile, the Tsarnaev brothers attempt to lay low while preparing for their next attack - in New York, but they have to get there first. They load up a car with their makeshift explosive devices in two boxes, and head out late at night. They need another weapon with which to protect themselves and so happen upon young Police Officer Sean Collier (Jake Picking) who is on night watch at a University Campus. They ambush him at gun point in his parked patrol car and shoot him twice in the face and attempt to steal his Police issue weapon, but Collier fights back from his drivers seat but is eventually overpowered with several more rounds shot into him at point blank range.

On the outskirts of the Campus, texting while parked in his new Mercedes SUV, Chinese student Dung Meng (Jimmy O. Yang) is car jacked by the two brothers and held captive at gun point. It is now 18th April, late at night, and the brothers brag to their captive that it was they who committed the Boston Marathon bombing and intend to do so again in New York. Meng is fearful for his life at the hands of the two bombers who now have him captive in his own car en route to New York. At a petrol station where the brothers stop to refill for fuel and food, Meng spies his chance to make a bolt for it and does so across the street into a convenience store and immediately calls the Police crouched behind the cashiers desk.

Saunders arrives at the scene and meets with Meng who, in his panicked pigeon English, reveals what the bombers said to him, and the number of his cars GPS tracking device so that they can follow the Mercedes. In Watertown the Mercedes is tracked down to a side street and a passing Police patrol car recognises the vehicle from the alert put out and goes in pursuit. The Mercedes is parked up in a quiet side street, that is about to turn very bloody and very noisy as an all out gun battle ensues between the two armed brothers and the gathering Police force including Police Sergeant Jeffrey Pugliese (J.K.Simmons). The brothers also use their stash of homemade bombs and in the ensuing firefight several Police Officers are injured, vehicles trashed, but Tamerlan is shot by Pugliese and then ran over by his brother who makes his getaway in the Mercedes. Tamerlan dies on the operating table a short time afterwards in the hospital from his wounds.

The next day the decision is made to lock down the city completely with a house to house search for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Saunders is back on the beat aiding the house to house investigations with the full force of the Police, and the military, as marshall law is declared temporarily and for the safety of Boston's citizens. A local man discovers someone hiding under the protective sheet covering his motor cruiser boat, and blood stains at the entry point at the boats rear. He calls the authorities, who converge on the property with Saunders and a colleague being the first to arrive at the scene. It's not long before the might of Uncle Sam reins down on the occupant of the boat who is indeed Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. He is promptly arrested after a brief stand-off, and the closing credits reveal that he is sentenced to death by lethal injection and is still awaiting an appeal in federal prison.

I enjoyed 'Patriots Day' and felt it was respectful to those that died and were injured in the attack, and the authorities, first responders, survivors and investigators who all played a part in the concerted effort to bring the Tsarnaev brothers to justice as quickly as they did. The film has clearly been meticulously researched and is professionally played out without over dramatising the events or glamourising the subsequent manhunt. This is a procedural Police investigative story that holds true to the timeline, and is told from several different perspectives splicing actual footage from the event into the film that adds authenticity to the suspense and the drama of one of the most sophisticated and celebrated manhunts in history that helped reunite the people of Boston.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

10, CLOVERFIELD LANE : Monday 4th April 2016.

I finally got around to seeing '10, CLOVERFIELD LANE' earlier this week after procrastinating for a long while about seeing it . . . and I'm pleased I did see it, because it is worth it! This Sci-Fi psychological thriller is Directed by Dan Trachtenberg in his Directing debut, and Produced by J.J.Abrams and is described by him as being the spiritual successor to 2008's found footage 'Cloverfield' which made US$171M off its US$25M budget, was critically well received, and was also Produced by J.J.  This latest film was released in early March Stateside and has so far grossed US$85M off its US$15M budget, and has also has received critical praise.

The film opens with Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) packing up her belongings and leaving home with her engagement ring left on the side table and a tear in her eye. As she drives through the night her mobile phone rings and it is Ben (voiced by Bradley Cooper) her boyfriend/fiance pleading with her to come home and not to over react because they had an argument. She answers the phone but doesn't speak, just allowing Ben to say a few words before hanging up on him. A few moments later, and Ben calls back, and as she reaches down to the phone, her car receives a direct hit from a passing vehicle sending her car tumbling end over end through a crash barrier and down a ravine, landing upside down.

She wakes sometime later on a mattress on the floor in an enclosed room behind a bolted door bandaged, and chained to a railing. She panics not knowing what has happened, when, why or how she got there.  Through the door enters big burly Howard (John Goodman) calling for her to rest up, take the medication he is offering and to give him thanks for saving her life and pulling her from the wreckage of her vehicle.  She has no memory of this.  She demands that he allows her to call her parents who will be worried sick, that her boyfriend will be out looking for her, and that she should get proper medical aid at a hospital. Howard then tells her that its is useless - no one is looking, there are no hospitals, and that she is in an underground bunker - safe from the world above that no longer exists as she remembers it - the result of an attack, but of which kind he is uncertain - nuclear, chemical or alien, or maybe all three.

Shortly afterwards we are introduced to Emmett (John Gallagher Jnr.) who is also holed up in the bunker but is there voluntarily as he originally helped Howard build the thing, and when the attack came - which he witnessed - he forced his way inside. Inside the bunker therefore are the three of them and we learn that Howard is an ex-Navy man, with conspiracy theories aplenty but had been planning and building his Doomsday Bunker for years knowing that such a day would come . . . and it did, very recently, and they could be down there for two years until the air above clears and becomes breathable once more. Michele doesn't know if she can believe him as his story seems too fantastical.

For a while some relative normalcy is resumed below ground with enough supplies, running water, power and the comforts of home to keep them occupied for a long while. Michelle however, hatches an escape plan which sees her get so close only to be confronted with a heavily skin infected woman hammering at the outer door of the bunker demanding to be let in. Michelle dare not let her in given what she is witnessing as Howard pleads with her not to go outside. Could he be telling the truth after all?

As time progresses a few truths are uncovered by Michelle and Emmett that lead them to hatch a second escape plan, but this is partially uncovered by Howard, who takes his anger out on Emmett who concocts a cover up story. Needless to say is doesn't end well for Emmett involving a gun shot at point blank range and a tub of perchloric acid. This is the catalyst for Michelle to take things into her own hands and act quickly now or face Howard's unhinged state.

Ultimately Michelle escapes after turning the tables, and the perchloric acid on Howard which results in the bunker exploding in a ball of flame and the old fella buying the farm. Outside using a makeshift biohazard suit and gas mask that she has fashioned together from a shower curtain and plastic drinks containers, Michelle is free and notices a flock of birds flying overhead - proof then that the atmosphere cannot be polluted. As she stands on the roof of Howard's car looking over the corn fields she spies in the near distance the awful truth about the outside world, and the claims that Howard was making. Needless to say it doesn't end there as Michelle is confronted with the truth up close & personal, and needs to think and act quickly if she is to survive.

This film is well crafted and the tension delivered by the three actors is at times palpable. There are a few jump scares too along the way which help maintain the attention and build the suspense, and the story twists and turns and it's not until the end that we discover if Howard was really telling the truth. You'll just have to catch it for yourself to find out . . . I don't think you'll be disappointed.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-