SIP Movie Review Blog

Just saw a horror movie, Contagion, starring Gwyneth Paltrow (Iron Man, Country Strong), Matt Daymon (The Departed, Bourne Ultimatum), Laurence Fishburne (The Matrix I, II, III), Jude Law (Sherlock Holmes, Cold Mountain), Kate Winslet (Titanic, Revolutionary Road), Marion Cotillard (Inception, Public Enemies), Elliott Gould (Mash, Ocean’s 11 & 13), and Bryan Cranston (Little Miss Sunshine, Drive).

So, it is not a horror movie in the traditional sense, it is a horror movie for our times.  Gwyneth is a mom who is in Asia on business, gets a mysterious virus, brings it back to Minnesota, and her family, played by Matt Damon and a young boy and teenage daughter.  When I say mysterious, what I mean is that no one can figure out how it started, no vaccines work to stop it, and it kills you in less than a week.  So we see it spread by air or contact, really fast.  The places Gwyneth was, the cocktail parties, dinners, airplane trips, all ended up costing others their lives.  Matt is apparently immune, but not his family.  Laurence is a director of CDC in Atlanta, they are quickly brought in when a few dozen people have died.  So when it gets to 80,000 in a few weeks, we see just how bad this bug can be.  Jude Law is a blogger who is against “the man”, meaning all recognized forms of government, health care, etc, and he sees a way to profit from this crises. 

Remember, it is growing all over the world.  So while we have issues in America, the really populated countries that serve food on a stick from a street vendor have a huge problem.  Some of those cities have 100 times the numbers of people living in close quarters that we have here, and it grows even faster.  Soon we have millions dead, they quarantine Chicago, among others.  You can’t go in or out, we see the police and health care workers refuse to go to work, since there is no cure.  We run out of body bags, this is a disaster on a global scale. 

Kate Winslet works for Laurence at the CDC, she gets sucked into going up North to find out where it started, not a good move.  Marion Cotillard is with the CDC, she gets sent to Asia, where she gets into trouble, I won’t give it away, just have to see it.  Elliott Gould is a research scientist who finds a clue to the origin and helps set a plan in motion to stop this viral pestilence, but can it be done in time?  Bryan Cranston plays the military guy who is in charge of the medical teams fighting on the front lines.  He is good, just not much of a role.  In fact, Laurence plays the pivotal role of bad guy/good guy.  He has a moral decision to make, and turns out he is human. 

All the while, Matt is trying to protect his daughter who came home to help when his wife died (not a scene spoiler, that is in the previews).  It boils down to who has the gun when the police are not available, everyone takes the law into their own hands. 

I can tell you this, we are more aware of coughing, sneezing, germs in general since we saw it.  Which is not a bad thing.  We’ll go with 3.5 emergency room visits.