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Story of a city under attack
RIGHT AT YOUR DOOR
Directed by Chris Gorak
Certificate 15
RIGHT At Your Door is a disturbing film, and made more so when seen as reflection of the times we are living in.
During the 1980s there was a spate of films such as The Day After and Threads focused on the horror of nuclear war. It spoke volumes about the real fears of the escalation in the arms race.
Right At Your Door is in the same vein, just updated for 2006. It is a claustrophobic story of the new fears that stalk American cities. It is no longer the Red threat – instead the idea of anti-western terrorists exploding a dirty bomb in an urban environment has captured film makers’ imagination.
Writer and director Chris Gorak has a good pedigree. He was art director on the Brad Pitt film Fight Club, an intelligent story with a few twists, and although the budget for this film was much smaller, his cinematography goes a long way to make the whole vibe very creepy.
His tale about the nightmare scenario of dirty bombs hitting Los Angeles seems at first to be pretty obvious, but there is a prevailing atmosphere of a normal day turned horrendously surreal because of the attack. It spreads a cloud of chemical nasties that is seeping across the city – leaving main character Brad (Rory Cochrane) to barricade himself in to his home and wait for the cavalry to arrive.
But he has the awful situation that his wife has been caught outside the supposedly safe confines of her house.
When she returns home – contaminated – her husband faces the dilemma of whether he should let her in and ignore the advice he has been given, or leave his dearly beloved outside.
This is not a dream couple. Recently married, they have moved in to their suburban pile and stuff is still stacked up in boxes.
Lexi (Mary McCormack) heads off to work, while her husband is a musician, which basically reads ‘a bit of a slacker’. He kisses her goodbye and then retires to the kitchen for a leisurely breakfast. But his morning is rudely interrupted by the attack.
Brad’s thoughts turn instantly to his wife, but his futile attempt to make sure she is safe is foiled almost before it has begun. The radio says stay indoors, seal the windows and wait for further instructions.
Joined by a man working on a neighbour’s house, the pair hunker down and wait.
There is a fair amount of tension as Lexi reappears and Brad is faced with his horrible dilemma.
And the fact that it uses Brad as the conduit to tell the story of a city makes for an uncomfortable atmosphere; it is not about the hordes running crazily through the streets of LA.
We are not allowed to become close to Brad although he may well be one of the few surviving people in California, he is not an Adam like character, not someone you would automatically look up to as a shining example of the human race.
This underlines the random nature of the terrorist attack; it is indiscriminate. He is not nice to his wife, and treats the Mexican workman like a servant.
But this adds a dose of realism – which makes Right At Your Door a depressing film, and therefore achieves what Gorak is aiming for. After all, dirty bombs wiping out cities is not a particularly nice theme. |
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