Sheriff Dan Colter is a highway patrolman conducts a roadblock on a desolate stretch of rural America . Several cars stop then Colter hears over the radio that the country is under attack from a nuclear strike
There's a good idea in here somewhere . You had to have lived through the cold war of the late 20th Century when tensions between East and West often seemed at breaking point . Dramas featuring nuclear paranoia were never entertaining but they were always memorable . Someone of my generation often has no difficulty of saying the 1984 docudrama THREADS was the scariest thing they ever saw on television and burnt its imagery across a young memory . In short nuclear paranoia dramas are memorable but this drama called THIS IS NOT A TEST is very obscure
It's easy to see why . It has one small setting , a small cast and doesn't concern itself with scope . In short it's a psycho-drama but for something like this to work the acting and writing must be perfect or at least very good if it's to stay in the mind and while the ending is suitably downbeat most of the assets of the patchy screenplay are let down by the cast
That said the characters are sketchily drawn . You have the elderly grandfather and his granddaughter , the rich and booze soaked philistine couple , a fugitive who is conveniently wanted for murder etc . None of the characters seem more than one note and the cast do not help in the slightest who are very wooden especially Seamon Glass as Colter who constantly talks in a dull monotone which is frankly distracting and considering he's effectively the lead character does tend to pull the film down
There's a good idea in here somewhere . You had to have lived through the cold war of the late 20th Century when tensions between East and West often seemed at breaking point . Dramas featuring nuclear paranoia were never entertaining but they were always memorable . Someone of my generation often has no difficulty of saying the 1984 docudrama THREADS was the scariest thing they ever saw on television and burnt its imagery across a young memory . In short nuclear paranoia dramas are memorable but this drama called THIS IS NOT A TEST is very obscure
It's easy to see why . It has one small setting , a small cast and doesn't concern itself with scope . In short it's a psycho-drama but for something like this to work the acting and writing must be perfect or at least very good if it's to stay in the mind and while the ending is suitably downbeat most of the assets of the patchy screenplay are let down by the cast
That said the characters are sketchily drawn . You have the elderly grandfather and his granddaughter , the rich and booze soaked philistine couple , a fugitive who is conveniently wanted for murder etc . None of the characters seem more than one note and the cast do not help in the slightest who are very wooden especially Seamon Glass as Colter who constantly talks in a dull monotone which is frankly distracting and considering he's effectively the lead character does tend to pull the film down