147 - The Divide

    A handful of survivors of a nuclear attack are safe under a building in the super's apartment/fallout shelter.  Tensions rise, and things get violent and nasty.
    I had heard a lot of good things about this one.  The plot is similar to at least one or two episodes of Twilight Zone, but I knew it had a lot more development it could have taken.  I have some mixed feelings about the way this turned out.
    The conflicts between characters aren't too specific.  They just seem to be about power, and less about survival.  The longer things go on, the weirder everything gets.
    But there's an event fairly early in the movie which should have defined the direction of the picture.  While the door has been taped off, a group of armored soldiers make their way into the bunker.  They can't be understood, and they take the youngest girl.  Then there's some conflict, and most of the soldiers get killed off.  One of the survivors takes the armor and weapon from a soldier, and leaves the bunker.  There, he finds a series of plastic tube hallways, leading to some sort of laboratory, where the girl is being experimented on.  After the other soldiers notice that he's not one of them, he runs back to the bunker.  Shortly afterward, the door to the bunker is welded shut from the outside.
    We never get any explanation for the role that these soldiers play.  And that feels like a bit of a cheat.  We got that scene around the 20 minute mark, so I expect that to play a larger role.  Instead, the only plot point that they seem to provide was getting rid of the girl, and sealing the door.  The door could have easily been sealed off - there's a building that collapsed around them.  They shouldn't even be able to open the door.  Getting rid of the girl would be a different problem.
    As I said, none of that stuff was explained.  And that's what doesn't feel right.  I don't think I needed a full explanation, but I needed at least a few more clues.
    I found the violence to be a little off.  My problem was mostly that the characters seemed a little too reluctant to kill one another.  It seemed obvious which characters needed to die, and I would have liked to see a little more insight on the part of the other survivors.

    For the first time, I have something to say about the music.  I kind of liked it.  It was simplistic, and it sounded like something I would make.  But the theme, which opened the movie, and was repeated later, seemed too obviously manipulative.  Other pieces of music were fine.
    I also don't think that the title was right.  I assumed that there would be two distinct camps, but nope, everyone seems to be on their own side.

    Some of the positive things - I like the way it was directed.  Except for a few shots later in the movie (from the ceiling grates) I liked getting the sense of space and enclosure that the movie offered.  The acting was a bit grating at first, but later on things got a little more fun.