I liked it. The cast and acting were superb. It's close to never when four of my very favorite actors are in one movie. The ending disappointed me initially, but after reading the producer's remarks, I'm totally fine with it.
Am planning to watch it tonight. I am wondering if we're headed for more stories like that, that avoid final resolution. I read a good book called The Bee Sting and, even though it's very long and involved, the writer ends the book at the most important moment, and you can only guess what must happen next. I think it's cheesy... maybe I'm old-fashioned (or, um, no maybe about that) but I like an ending to chew on.
I think the open ending is a cop out It's almost like they painted themselves into a corner and couldn't write themselves out of it Rocket River
I guess we are fully spoilering the movie, but I haven't even watched it yet, so fine. Imagine having a limited budget that you mainly spent on a great cast... and then you have just a few options for a finale: expensive CGI cataclysm, or a big missile basically shooting a blank over a city skyline. "Hey uh, let me see that script. ... Let's just basically delete the last 20 pages here."
Halfway through the movie I told my wife this might be the best Netflix movie I've ever seen but I didn't realize we weren't getting a full movie. The ending, or lack thereof, is what's killing the ratings.
This is where I've landed. Now, my expectations were tempered by the hubbub over the apparent lack of resolution, so potential disappointment was literally spoiled a bit. But I was able to enjoy it for what it is, and that's a whole lot of good. As to why the low ratings? I found a bunch of negative reviews from legit critics who just wanted something a lot better from a Noted Filmmaker. Some even called it visually flat and sloppy. But I found it visually engaging and precise. Other critics hated the use of multiple perspectives, but I loved that. Fiction, I've been told, needs one of two things: normal people in extraordinary situations, or an extraordinary (at least extraordinarily interesting) character in a normal situation. This is the former done perfectly. As we all know from the trailer: A clock gets set for a bunch of very normal people, on an otherwise very normal morning, using a bunch of fairly normal comms tech -- people lose cell signals, and some secure lines can't have merged calls, etc -- to make our species' most important decision within like 19 minutes. And as insane as it may sound, the decision really is not obvious, and I say that as a bleeding heart humanist. Not having the decision handed to us in the end is kind of perfect. But honestly, I think all the signs are there for the decision as well. Spoiler I think he was going to launch, maybe the "medium" option. When he asked what the "American people" would think about having one of their cities nuked, and when he weighed the cost of our vulnerability if we did nothing, and when he started the initiation protocol, I think all that leads to launching something significant. He was not trying to get himself argued into standing down. Others have noted that you can listen carefully to the soundtrack during the closing credits to know exactly what the president did. Don't know if I agree with analyzing credits sound, but anyway... Kudos to all the research and thinking people did for this script, and kudos for its continuity. I want to watch it again. I've always been fascinated / horrified by nuclear war.
Love Bigelow, but, was disappointed in this film. Granted, it's a tall order to pull off. I thought it had a Seven Days in May quality with emotions thrown in that messed with the suspension of disbelief. I, also didn't dig the aforementioned ending or lack of one.
