[yasr_overall_rating]
Neighbours in a block wake one morning to find they have been sealed inside their apartments. Can they work together to find out why? Or will they destroy each other in their fight to escape?
I think two issues a lot of people will experience while watching “Containment,” is that a). It is not a zombie movie and b). It is not an action movie. I think it’s safe to say that typically, any movie that contains a building which is quarantined because of a suspected virus outbreak with its occupants trapped inside, normally evolves in to some sort of zombie catastrophe, comparable to other such movies as “REC” and “Quarantine,” the latter being an English-speaking remake of the Spanish former. “Containment” is a praiseworthy character study in human behavior under disastrous circumstances which deliberately takes its time reaching the end. In doing so, we get to know each of the individual characters and their given situations until a group of neighbors decide to band together, hoping to survive with safety in numbers, against an alleged contagious epidemic.
As the movie begins, Mark (Lee Ross) is running late for a job interview. With no power and no water in his apartment, he hurriedly gets dressed but when he tries to open the front door, it is sealed shut. No matter how hard he tries it just won’t budge. He notices his neighbors in the block across from him banging on their windows and when he looks down into the courtyard, he sees people wearing HazMat suits who are sealing the place off. With no apparent way out, and no cell phone reception, he is resigned to the fact that he cannot leave his own home but before he has time to formulate a plan, loud banging emanates from the living room and in no time, his next door neighbors have knocked a hole in his wall. Their plan? To move from apartment to apartment and to acquire as many people as humanly possible to try and escape.
But they ascertain early on that escape won’t be that easy as they witness a neighbor across the road being shot dead from a sniper’s rifle as he tries to break out of quarantine. The tension slowly builds and tempers flare as some wish to make a break while others insist on staying put but when the group manages to capture a soldier wearing a HazMat suit, the tables begin to turn but not for long. While they stare out their windows, they notice all the HazMat people are gone. The soldier warns them that the virus is within the building and just being around an infected person is enough to become contaminated but with no way to communicate with the outside world and an eerie silence engulfing their apartment block, they must decide quickly on a plan of action or risk their homes becoming their tombs.
“Containment” is not a movie for everyone and I blame all the zombie-related films out there for that. We have all become so accustomed to the mere mention of a virus within a movie that we immediately think ‘zombie apocalypse” and most times we’re correct but not here. In one expository scene near the end of the movie, the soldier informs the group that the virus attacks your esophagus first, causing great difficulty in being able to talk and breathe and then it strikes at your respiratory system and if not treated in time, paralysis and death follows. Upon hearing this, my first thought was “What? No zombies?” But it quickly dawned on me that had the filmmakers gone down that road, I would have felt betrayed because almost every other ‘virus’ movie out there follows that conventional path.
Here thankfully, the filmmakers concentrate more on story development and each individual character and their responses to the ever-changing atmosphere surrounding them. Do they make a break for it and if so, is it worth the risk? Do they stay put and if so, what do they gain? Do they kill the soldier because she’s wearing a HazMat suit and they’re not? Is she not a person simply trying to contain what could become a catastrophic outbreak by simply doing her job? The cause and effect of each decision is what’s vital here because you only get a single chance at either one. Director Neil Mcenery-West is to be commended for taking such a clichéd and well-worn scenario and turning it into a thought-provoking narrative filled with adept performances and authentic environments.
Available on VOD August 1st including Dish Network, DirecTV, iTunes and Google Play
Available on DVD from Wal-Mart September 1st then nationwide September 22nd
