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.
This f•cking movie annoyed the hell out of me -- the first half was solid, but yeah that ending was a shock. Like I was literally surprised when the credits started rolling.
Seeing Tracy Letts completely took me out of the movie. I just kept thinking of him being married to Carrie Coon and I was just softly muttering “how?” for the next sixty-seven minutes.
Brains, and they're both theater geeks. Look at his resume: Pulitzer and Tony as a writer, another Tony as an actor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracy_Letts
Hmm, personally I was highly annoyed by his apparent extreme intrigue in Francisco Lindor, especially considering his praise was focused on the MLB ALL-STAR GAME. He wouldn’t stop talking about it. I found it so ****ing weird. What…?
What I got is that NO ONE can make logical and sensible decisions in a nuclear attack scenario. You can plan it out 1000000x and you still cannot make a logical and sensible decision. Spoiler I like that the ending was left ambiguous. I find it pretty weird that an option was not considered... wait, gather more info, then attack (or not). I mean, launch back against what when you don't know who. And why the rush when you're advised that the bomb could be a dud? It seems a very logical option is to wait it out while gathering more data including, if it does detonate, the type of weapon it was, which presumably they have the intel to figure out the origin.
The movie seemed interesting at first, however by the end, i found it largely nonsensical and even lame. It reminded me of the 'smart guy' in the room who is always throwing out technical terms and acronyms the average person wouldn't really understand. Half the technical terms being used was largely irrelevant to the issue at hand. I didn't care that the movie ended with no resolution, however I have problems with how it start. Claiming nobody knew where the ICBM came from is right up there when a TV series introduces some bone headed decision that keeps the plot going for the next 10 seasons.
Spoiler Agreed. The president being completely confused by the nuke menu and asking for help from the LC was awkward as well. I don't understand the rush to launch before the nuke hit -- the only option is to wait because as soon as Russia sees the US launch they would go full send. The young guy running to the white house forced into high level discussions stammering and stuttering was such a trope. I really wanted to see them wait and solve the mystery of where it was launched. And tbh watching Chicago get nuked would have interesting. The Secdef jump... smh
