Reviews

As a fan of British crime drama and police procedurals I clicked on this readily enough. Five minutes in was ready to turn it off but battled through hoping it would get better. Unfortunately it did not. With performances going from wooden to cringe inducing and over the top to the point it almost had me laughing. The story itself plods along and there are holes in the story which I will not go into to keep this spoiler free. It is predictable and the reveal of the killer and 'twist' ending holds no surprises. The dialogue and direction are also poor and this movie drags interminably. There is so much great British drama to choose from, this is not one of them.

This documentary is not easy to watch. It contains real and harrowing footage of the aftermath of the devastating earthquake that hit Christchurch, New Zealand in early 2011, as well as interviews of the people involved. It charts the original chaos, the rescue attempts and triage, and the impact it had on the rescuers and survivors.The documentary shows sadness, pain, and bravery. I recently went to New Zealand and was saddened to see this beautiful city is still trying to recover. But watching this film helped me to understand why, as it helped me to grasp the severity of the event in a way I could not at the time it happened. It is effective in it's storytelling and makes for compelling viewing. If you are interested in learning more about this tragedy I would recommend this film. But more than that it shows how people band together to help others when they are needed, and as one of the rescuers stated, though it changed him and the event itself was traumatic, he would not have done anything differently. It is inspirational to see what courage can be found in times of crisis.