Post by StevePulaski on Dec 25, 2010 23:08:07 GMT -5
Love turns into anger quickly in The Trigger Effect.
Rating: ★★★
The Trigger Effect is a movie I'm not proud to like, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't. It wasn't a fantastic thriller, but it shouldn't get the beating it's getting on IMDB, Netflix, and every other review site. The acting isn't phenomenal, the plot isn't much, but the events in the film keep you at least interesting and hoping for the best. In the long run, The Trigger Effect is not the worst thing to come out of movies ever.
Sometimes, I believe, when a movie is panned by critics and moviegoers, a film gets bad reviews by everyone whether they like it or not. I looked on the IMDB Bottom 100 before writing this review, and thought, there's got to be one person out there that likes some of these films. I scanned about twenty, and the twenty I picked had no review above two out of ten. My point; not everyone can hate a movie. It can't be so bad no one likes it. This is kind of how I feel with this film and the 1996 comedy Bio-Dome which I found to be an entertaining film. The only difference with The Trigger Effect is I could find someone who liked Bio-Dome. I have yet to find someone that [honestly] admits they like The Trigger Effect.
The film has no real plot. It takes place in Southern California where our two protagonists reside. Matt (Kyle MacLachlan) and Annie (Elizabeth Shue) return home from the movies to find their infant screaming with an ear ache. Matt calls a doctor who promises to have a prescription filled by morning. In the middle of the night, the neighbors wake to find a the town has blacked out. Matt arrives at the pharmacy to find out the doctor didn't call in the prescription, so he resorts to stealing the medicine for the baby.
Matt's brother Joe (Dermot Mulroney) arrives at the house to convince the couple to buy a gun for security since the blackout is causing very strange behavior amongst the town. When purchasing the gun, the four come to the consensus that they must take a trip to wife's parent's house. Soon enough, all hell breaks loose.
The film is no masterpiece, but it shouldn't get the beating it is taking on the web now. It's a very least intriguing. You want to know what happens to these innocent people. You want to follow them through this journey through hell. As most of these events occur, they trigger another thing to happen (obviously why the film's title is what it is). Clearly the person behind this idea wanted no light at the end of the tunnel. Just like the film Where the Heart Is or The Quiet.
My favorite scene in The Trigger Effect is where they are about to pick up some random hitchhiker on the side of the road. They see he has a gun, and are worried letting him in the care will end with one of them dead. Just when they make the wrong move to pull a shotgun on him, he shoots by instinct injuring the brother. He then goes into a screaming rampage while an infant is crying in pain and in fear. It's absolutely well acted, and genuinely creepy.
Upon it's release, it grossed a mere $1,887,791, and ranked 12th at the Box Office. It came up very short compared to it's $8,000,000 budget. It went on to gross around $3,000,000 in it's entirety, and lead on to never being spoken about again. While I think in no means it should be praised, it should at least be recognized for doing the job it did. It didn't want to be bad, but then again no movie does. It just showed it's limitations on screen, and nothing more. It doesn't want to be anything more than it's budget allows. It's a good thing and a bad thing simultaneously.
Starring: Kyle MacLachlan, Elisabeth Shue, and Dermot Mulroney. Directed by: David Koepp.