Right at your Door review

Right at your Door is an independent thriller film in wich "dirty" bombs, or chemical weaponry, is detonated in downtown Hollywood, causing havoc and much pain.

I have extremely mixed feelings about this film. On the one hand, it's extremely realistic and it hits home in this post-911 world. On the other hand, it's inept and unfocused in the way the story is told.

We have a young married couple who are separated one morning due to a massive bombing of L.A. The husband Brad(Rory Cochraine) is stuck in his house with the radio by his side. His wife Lexi(Mary McCormick) is stuck outside in the toxic cloud.

The film is frightening for the first half of the 96 minute runtime. It really gets down deep and makes you paranoid. What if this could really happen? It CAN really happen...

The acting is good, but the script leaves something to be desired on occasion.

Unfortunately, the film slows to an insanely repetitive lull during the last 40 minutes or so. Throughout the movie we see the interaction between the two central characters as Brad has sealed off the house on suggestion by the news on the radio. It gets insanely boring as the same conversation is had over and over and over again.

There are two glaring problems: firstly, that we never actually see all the panic. It's all described on the radio. In fact, probably the only message in the film that's hinted at is that the media may not be a reliable source of information and may be hiding something. I was expecting this big twist at the end where its revealed that the government was behind it all, or there really wasn't any poison, or something regarding misinformation.

But, no, we get this butt-fuckingly STUPID twist ending that attempts to make the aforementioned point but fails miserably. It's a useless plot device and cheapens the film immensely. It seemed like a shocker just tacked on to jolt us back after we dozed off during the last "When will I get rescued?" speech. We never get any of the answers to the questions the characters ask. Why build up to just screw us over like that?

The film manages to make me feel genuinely frightened and genuinely pissed at the same time. It has moderately high production values, and for an independant film it is above the pack, but it could have been sooooo much better.

62/100