Movies

Reviewed by: Dare Devil KidRating: 3.5/5 stars"Containment" gets by purely on resourcefulness and sincerity. It's a niftily executed viral-outbreak thriller that, true to its title, makes good use of a confined space to ratchet up the drama of the situation, while working hard to bypass the more obvious narrative traps it creates for itself. Strong attention to detail and a disquieting score set this directorial debut feature apart, but some of the characters' motivations aren't entirely convincing.There's nothing groundbreaking in this low-budget British thriller, but newbie director Neil Mcenery-West makes excellent use of his claustrophobic setting. Eventually, "Containment" succeeds in proving that you don't need a whopping great budget, nor an A-list cast to produce an accomplished piece of work.

"Containment" (2015) is the film that sounds cliché but isn't. It's a surprisingly fresh take on an old standby -- diverse people isolated by an outside threat are forced to cope and survive with each other, along with the threat. In this case, an entire apartment block in Britain is forcibly and mysteriously quarantined overnight; residents awake to sealed doors and hazardous materials units being deployed along the grounds.But this is a smartly written independent sci-fi thriller that avoids a lot of common tropes. Then it introduces plot developments that are unexpected, yet make perfect sense. It's more original than you'd guess at first.There's a lot of nice acting, including work by Lee Ross, and by Louise Brealey of "Sherlock" (2010) fame.My only complaint was a thematically ambiguous ending that seemed lost on me. But I'd still give this an 8 out of 10.

The problem with the film is that it has been done before, and much better. I am a fan of contagion themes - real ones, not zombies or some other crap like that - but I found this boring as hell. People talk a lot, overreact, reach stupid conclusions and then just fail right before implementing a good idea.The only thing they got right is how incompetent "the authorities" would be in a case like that, but even that has been done to death, especially in British productions.Bottom line: you know this film has failed when I suddenly found myself hoping the infected would act like zombies.