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Pandemic
USA 2009
produced by Jason Connery, Ray Ellingsen, Shari Hamrick, Ricki Maslar, Kristi Culbert (executive), Chris Harper (executive), Trevor Richardson (executive) for Hollywood Phoenix Studios, Unconditional Entertainment
directed by Jason Connery
starring Alesha Clarke (= Alesha Rucci), Peter Holden, Ray Wise, Graham McTavish, Kristi Culbert, Andrew Reville, Tom Proctor, trevor Richardson, Aaron Favor, Chris Harper, Dashiell Connery, John Milton Branton, Maury Rogow, Bobby Burkey, Mark Alan Anderson, Chris Kahlert, Chad Lares, Scott Maslar, Rufino Ocamica, Anthony Reynolds, Tiffany Rush-Green
written by Aaron Pope, music by Christian Henson, visual effects by Steele Studios
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
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An epidemic has broken out in Diablo County, the least populated strip
of land of the USA, and vet Sydney Stevens (Alesha Clarke) is the first
one to notice - but when she and the local doctor (Kristi Culbert) call
the center for disease control, the army shows up instead, seals the area
off and also cuts off all communications with the outside world. And when
the doctor, too, dies from the disease, Sydney finds herself fighting
against whatever it is (or is she actually fighting something?) on her own. She is
soon joined though by a conspiracy theorist, Spencer (Peter Holden), who
half convinces her that the army is testing bacterialogical weapons here
and they have to get out of Diablo County ... but when they are trying
they are hunted down and apprehended by the army. And while Spencer is
shot, Sydney has a talk with the local commander Matthews (Ray Wise), who
tells her that Spencer was not only a dangerous terrorist but also his own
son, and he half convinces her to return home and calm down the locals.
Ultimately though, Sydney decides to make it out of the county on her own,
but dies from the virus Matthews himself has administered to her via
drinking water once she thinks herself safe. In the end, a news report
informs us that a virus has broken out in an Afghan tribal region that has
been considered as a terrorists' hotbed - a virus strikingly similar to
that of Diablo County ... A light version of George A.Romero's The
Crazies, and while that movie was not exactly Romero's
masterpiece, it at least was a political statement, even if the politics
came across a bit heavy-handed. Pandemic on the other hand is less
interested in the political aspects of the story and more into the
conspiracy theory behind it - which makes the film's anti-army statement
weirdly a-political. Apart from the movie's message, Pandemic is
strictly run-of-the-mill low budget fare, mediocre actors (except for Ray
Wise, who is properly menacing as a wolf in sheep skin) going through the
motions, a cast of dozens (or maybe not even) trying to portray a
large-scale disaster, a very impersonal direction that doesn't even try to
make the film into something special, and a plethora of plotholes (like
why does the army have to test the virus on home soil when they could have
tested it into Afghanistan right away? What exactly would they have lost
if it failed on the actual battleground? Or why does Matthews administer
the virus to Sydney instead of killing her on the spot - this way he risks
her to spread the virus beyond county lines, which she almost did? And
there are plenty more questions than those ...). Now all that does not
necessarily make Pandemic a bad movie, this could have even been good in its
badness, but apart from all that, Pandemic makes one major mistake: It's
dead boring - and this is something I can't easily forgive.
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