Review:
"The Divide"
Release Date: Jan. 11, 2012
Rating: R Running Time: 122 minutes Adverse circumstances bring out the worst in people. So it should not come as a surprise in The Divide when survivors of a nuclear attack on New York City immediately turn on each other while trapped inside a cramped fallout shelter. The de facto leader is the Michael Biehn, the high-strung apartment superintendent responsible for maintaining the shelter for the anxious residents who now rightly view him with suspicion. With supplies running out, and unknown forces at the door, the mostly unlikable survivors form alliances and then engage in Lord of the Flies-ish mind games or employ brute force to establish control of the shelter. The Divide remains a tense exercise in paranoia as long as Biehn asserts his dominance over the survivors, who include Rosanna Arquette, Courtney B. Vance, Lauren German and Milo Ventimiglia. As volatile as a case of liquid explosives, Biehn generates the nervous energy that fuels the first half of The Divide. When Biehn’s overthrown, and subsequently ignored by director Xavier Gens, The Divide becomes a bizarre but lethargic study in the evil men do in the name of survival. It’s easy to predict which survivors will emerge triumphant and which will allow be treated like dirt. Gens doesn’t revel in the torture, sexual abuse and lessons in humiliation that occur during the final days in the shelter. Still, The Divide limps toward an inevitable climax that finds little faith in humanity’s willingness to work together as one during a time of crisis and need. Robert Sims Aired: Jan. 12, 2012 Web site: https://www.facebook.com/TheDivideMovie |
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