Reviews

In many ways this story could have taken place in any poor section of the United States regardless of geography, culture or skin tone. It's a story about Americans lacking both job opportunities and education, resulting ignorance and poverty plus untreated mental illnesses. Drug use is often a result of these things. It's also a story about family and family helping family.

One reason why the movie is probably rated less than stellar is due to it's dark nature. It's gritty and frustrating to see human lives needlessly wasted. The brightest part of the entire movie is, literally, the last two minutes before the credits roll.

Another reason is that turning any great book, which often takes 5-8 hours to read, into a two hour movie is going to tick off anyone who read the book. I first experienced this after reading Paul Gallico's excellent adventure novel "The Poseidon Adventure" then seeing the movie a couple years later. Although the movie is rated 7.1 on IMDB, I was disappointed for the simple reason movies can never live up to a book. Yes, including the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Critics whining about the movie have similar complaints, that the movie doesn't live up to the book or harping that extra time should have been spent on one thing over another. An example is Bev (J.D. Vance's mother) obvious mental illness (my guess is bipolarism), her inability to receive adequate treatment and her continual relapses into ever worsening drug addictions as a probable cause from untreated mental illness.

As others mentioned, it would take a mini-series to fully tell this story. As it is, the movie is well worth watching on its own merits.

Solid Film Noir movie albeit among the few with a happy ending. Not among the top 10 of the genre but certainly in the top third. Brian Donlevy as Walter Williams, Ella Raines as Marsha Peters and Helen Walker as Irene Williams all have great roles in the movie. Williams is the betrayed husband hiding behind his assumed murder, Peters is the WWII widow who pushes Williams out of hiding and Irene Williams is the cheating murderous wife of Walter. Helen Walker was a beautiful and talented actress who made a life-changing mistake at the age of 26 on New Year's Eve 1946 when she picked up three WWII vets and was then involved a fatal car accident killing one vet and seriously injuring both herself and two others. She was young, all probably had too much to drink and it was the days before seatbelts. The accident changed her from a beautiful leading actress to a supporting actress playing damaged, evil women. This movie is one of her best in such a secondary role.

The ratings don't tell the tale. This is a great character-driven movie, not a female version of Charles Bronson movies. Olivia Wilde proves she has serious acting chops and those skills deserve to be recognized. The movie begins with Sadie's (Wilde's) present, flashes back to how she got there then moves forward to a final confrontation with her abuser. Wilde's acting rises far above a plot-hole of how Sadie resolves the dispute with her abusive husband. The movie could easily be used in acting school proving how much an actor can convey to an audience without dialogue and with facial expressions. This is not a date movie and it isn't a "chick flick". It's definitely worth watching and sends a message to all on how people can both help each other and learn to stand up for themselves.

A thought provoking pseudo-documentary about life after a plague has wiped out the majority of San Francisco and the rest of the world.

Shot on an obvious shoe-string, it covers common science-fiction territory about life for the survivors in the aftermath of such a calamity.

The focus is on the people and the remains of society. Adam Savage as the "engineer" provides the technical aspects of how people are coping, but the movie primarily focuses on how individuals choose to exist and their relations, if they choose to have any, with others. Some choose to work with others in a town-style setting, some like to live on the outskirts but still interact with those in town and a few have gone completely isolationist. It includes one "execution", not seen on- screen, of a person who was deemed dangerous to the other survivors.

For avid readers or viewers of apocalyptic movies, they may be a bit bored. For those new to the topic, I think they will find this movie to be very thought-provoking and enjoyable.

This is an average movie with a few tense battle scenes. The story illustrates the humble and honest backgrounds of the soldiers from both sides of the conflict, both before their meeting and during a night spent around the campfire. When the sun rises, a few of the soldiers return to being soldiers while others want to separate as comrades-in-arms despite being on opposite sides of the war.

The ending of this movie takes me back to those 70s movies where all the heroes can be counted on to die futile deaths by the end of the flick, and the audience is left slightly depressed or thinking "Bummer, dude." Although movies like this can be a bit depressing, they are good at illustrating the point that, although war may be necessary for the greater good, that good always comes at a terrible price.