The Trigger Effect
Director:David Koepp
Screenplay:David Koepp
Starring:Kyle MacLachlan, Elisabeth Shue,
Dermot Mulroney, Michael Rooker, Richard T. Jones
John's Review
The Trigger effect is a bad film. I say this for many reasons, not just because the story is absolutely pathetic, but the acting and the directing are not very well done either. The story is this, apparently in, we'll call it rude-obnoxious-ville, since a name is never given for the city in which these short tempered, not very intelligent people live. One night the power goes out, we're never told why, but that's not important. So everything goes to hell. Matt (MacLachlan) and his wife Annie (Shue), live in the suburbs of this dismal place. Their daughter is apparently sick and needs medicine which they can't get because, not only is the power out, but, the phones don't work. So they can't call the doctor and get a prescription. We then go into this totally worthless seguway in which Matt steals the prescription from the local pharmacy.
Right about this time their friend Joe (Mulroney) comes by and suggests they drive downtown to check out the looting and rioting!! Sounds like fun Joe, I'm feeling a bit suicidal!! (This is not in the movie it's my sarcasm, if the movie doesn't sound stupid yet, read on...)We then go into a scene in which Matt and Annie get their house broken into. The burglar gets shot in the road by Matt's neighbor, while being chased by Matt and Joe. Now Matt has an attack of morals and thinks this is wrong. Meanwhile the police show up. Did I mention there was no power or phones?
By the way, the National Guard at no time during this film ever shows up. Matt and Joe then decide they need a gun and go downtown to get one. More fun. Arguments ensue, people are rude and short with each other, which is apparently exactly how it is when the power is on. The movie just goes on to get considerably worse and worse. They travel 400 miles out of town and find the power is, hold on here, still out! Even though you can see a nuclear power plant on the horizon, which has apparently not had a melt down, yet.
By this time you really don't care about the characters or the movie and wish it would just end. Joe gets shot, but you don't care, Matt runs to a house to borrow a car and take Joe to the hospital, but you don't care. He then yells at a man to borrow his car, and that doesn't work, so he goes back to the car grabs the gun and runs (3 miles now) back to the house. But, we don't care.
David Koepp has been a mediocre, if convoluted writer. Jurassic Park was a moderatly faithful adaptation of the book. Mission Impossible was... I didn't GET Mission Impossible. As a Director, he needs work, lots of it. MacLachlan, Shue and Mulroney look considerably bored with this film, I don't think any of them actually wanted to be there. Rooker and Jones are the only two actors in the entire movie that did a good job.
I have only given an 'F' to a very short list of films, this is one of them. Do not see this movie unless it's on the network or basic cable. Trust me you do not want to pay for it.
Grade: F
Werner's Review
I could not believe how bad this movie was. I had such high hopes for this film since it seemed to harken back to the disaster films of the 1960's-1970's that I assumed it would be as much fun as those movies were. Boy was I wrong.
Please Note: I do not normally give out F's for films. I mean I can find some redeeming quality about most movies if given a chance (I am a horror film buff after all) but this movie really had nothing good about it at all. So take the "F" I am giving this film more as a warning than as a grade and avoid this movie at all costs.
The Plot: WARNING: STUPIDITY NOW COMENCES
The movie centers around MacLachlan and Shue as a married yuppie couple with a new baby who are living the seemingly good life out in the suburbs. Shue comes across as a sex starved, ignored housewife while McGlochlan comes across as a wimp. The movie opens up with them at the movies surrounded by very rude people. We then shift to them at their house with Shue hitting on MacLachlan while he acts indifferent toward her advances.
Then the power goes out and the movie gets real bad. Apparently the power (and conveniently the phones as well) is out everywhere (and I do mean everywhere) which immediately leads to mass rioting by everyone, even though it has only been out for a couple of hours. This then causes our main characters to waste 10 minutes of the film with a stupid plot thread consisting of their sick baby, the lack of a prescription, and the dilemma of how they are going to get it. This has nothing to do with the movie at all except show us again that the power is out everywhere.
It is at this point in the movie that we are introduced to a new character, Mulroney, who is never truly introduced in the movie (is he MacLachlan's brother or friend? We really don't know.) Then we go on a nice little ride downtown to see all of the violence, for no reason. We have the young couple's house broken into by a person who is helping to renevate the house which leads to his death by a neighbor as he tries to escape. We have the two male leads buying a gun with no money. We have all of the neighbors acting rude to each other even though they came across as friends at the start of the film.
And then the movie gets real assinine. Suddenly, all 3 main characters decide to go to Shue's mother's house in Colorado for no real reason (also the baby comes back into play in the movie as well). So we switch to a stupid road trip as we see the whole country is without power and we run into a man who needs a lift (played by Micheal Rooker) to a town and when our band of idiots attempts to scare him away with a gun he shoots one of them (Mulroney) and steals their car.
The film then ends with MacLachlan spending about 4 hours of movie time scaring and yelling out a black man in a house who won't for some odd reason allow MacLachlan to use his car in order to help his wife, baby, and mortally wounded friend (I wonder why). Finally an agreement is reached (with both actors at gun point) and the movie ends. Thank God.
The Good:
Nothing. Well, that is not quite true. I did enjoy Michael
Rooker's acting as well as the acting of the black actor who
appears mainly at the end of the movie. At least they brought
some semblance of quality to an otherwise horrible movie.
The Bad:
Everything. The acting from the 3 main characters was just horrible. MacLachlan overacts while Shue and Mulroney seem to be sleepwalking through their parts.
The plot made no sense at all. Gapping holes kept showing up in the movie that were never explained. For example, all 3 charaters go into the downtown section of the city they are in yet there is no mention of what happened with their baby. So either they brought it with them into a riot zone or else it is at home alone (parent of the year winners they ain't). Also, when we are out in the mid-west with them, we constantly see a shot of a nuclear power plant in the background. If there is no power at all, how are the control rods to the plant being dealt with and if they are not being dealt with properly then why has no nuclear meltdown of the plant occurred yet.
We also have a plot problem in the beginning of the film of what to do with the baby. Throughout the movie, the infant is used more as a prop than as a character conveniently coming into the movie whenever the characters need it to.
The film is also shot poorly. A lot of close ups that are not justified and a lot of colorful background lighting that really should not exist at all considering there is no power.
Overall:
As Opus the Penguin once said: "This film is bad. Bad lighting, bad editing, bad acting, bad special effects, bad gaffing. OK, maybe it wasn't that bad BUT Lord it wasn't good."
Grade: F
