The 1980s were scary times and I don't mean clothes and hairstyles . This was the era of MAD Mutually Assured Destruction where the East and West targeted each other with a nuclear stockpile where they were ready to be unleashed if the Cold War suddenly got very hot . We live in more peaceful times . There's more democracy in the world hence more peace and I don't miss the 1980s and watching something like THREADS still remains an unpleasant experience it is a nice little reminder of what could have been . With the end of the Cold War came the end of the nuclear holocaust genre so if you're making a film featuring mushroom clouds blooming all across the world you've got to bring something new to the table . This film THE DIVIDE does try but fails quite badly
It gets off to a good start as a young woman watches the nuclear destruction of New York take place . It contains good cinematography as we see the trail of nuclear missiles reflected on the surface of her left eye . This is a problem with this mis en scene when the camera cuts to a long shot of her framed against the window and we see the devastation outside . That is it reveals the destruction has been going on for a considerable amount of time and yet the window remains intact and hasn't been affected by any sort of shock wave from a nuclear explosion . This sums up the problem of the film from the outset where things aren't given enough thought or thought through strongly enough to be credible and for a film that has a good idea constantly insists on wasting them
You can see the premise is all about how low human beings can go to survive and I was reminded of the British thriller THE HOLE from about ten years ago . THE DIVIDE tries to be a more post apocalyptic version of this type of story but contains some incredibly bad plot holes and too many ideas for its own good . The most startling thing is a subplot where the shelter is invaded by armed men wearing NBC suits who then capture a child survivor and try to eliminate the other people in the shelter . It hints that they're part of a foreign power who were behind the strike such as North Korea but after they seal up the shelter they're effectively forgotten about as though these scenes never happened . On the message boards there are several threads speculating who these white suited men are , a popular one being that a plague has broken out and America has nuked its own population to stop the plague spreading but at no point do any of the characters state there was anything out of the ordinary before the strike and no matter how you try to dress this up it's a major distraction from the plot . It might have worked better if this entire subplot had been deleted but it leads to a very contrived plot device where the sane survivor escapes via a NBC suit which begs the question as to why one of the bad guys hadn't thought of it ? More plot holes which sums up THE DIVIDE perfectly
In short it's a film with a 1980s Cold War premise made in the 21st Century . This is even reflected in the casting of Michael Biehn and Rosanna Arquette who were the two rising stars of Hollywood in the mid 1980s and whose careers quickly fizzled out . Despite a strong premise and a doom laden atmosphere THE DIVIDED quickly fizzles out too which is a shame because it did show signs of almost being a very good movie
It gets off to a good start as a young woman watches the nuclear destruction of New York take place . It contains good cinematography as we see the trail of nuclear missiles reflected on the surface of her left eye . This is a problem with this mis en scene when the camera cuts to a long shot of her framed against the window and we see the devastation outside . That is it reveals the destruction has been going on for a considerable amount of time and yet the window remains intact and hasn't been affected by any sort of shock wave from a nuclear explosion . This sums up the problem of the film from the outset where things aren't given enough thought or thought through strongly enough to be credible and for a film that has a good idea constantly insists on wasting them
You can see the premise is all about how low human beings can go to survive and I was reminded of the British thriller THE HOLE from about ten years ago . THE DIVIDE tries to be a more post apocalyptic version of this type of story but contains some incredibly bad plot holes and too many ideas for its own good . The most startling thing is a subplot where the shelter is invaded by armed men wearing NBC suits who then capture a child survivor and try to eliminate the other people in the shelter . It hints that they're part of a foreign power who were behind the strike such as North Korea but after they seal up the shelter they're effectively forgotten about as though these scenes never happened . On the message boards there are several threads speculating who these white suited men are , a popular one being that a plague has broken out and America has nuked its own population to stop the plague spreading but at no point do any of the characters state there was anything out of the ordinary before the strike and no matter how you try to dress this up it's a major distraction from the plot . It might have worked better if this entire subplot had been deleted but it leads to a very contrived plot device where the sane survivor escapes via a NBC suit which begs the question as to why one of the bad guys hadn't thought of it ? More plot holes which sums up THE DIVIDE perfectly
In short it's a film with a 1980s Cold War premise made in the 21st Century . This is even reflected in the casting of Michael Biehn and Rosanna Arquette who were the two rising stars of Hollywood in the mid 1980s and whose careers quickly fizzled out . Despite a strong premise and a doom laden atmosphere THE DIVIDED quickly fizzles out too which is a shame because it did show signs of almost being a very good movie